The Brothel in O'Neill's Mansions

Abstract

THE SUCCESSFUL STAGING IN 1968 in both Los Angeles and New York of a major production of the Eugene O'Neill drama, More Stately Mansions demands that some detailed critical analysis other than newspaper reviews at last be paid . this play, the opinion of Mr. Robert Brustein and others notwithstanding. In his discussion of O'Neill's play in The Theatre of Revolt Brustein, at that time theater critic of New Republicdismissed More Stately Mansions with a footnote. The play was, he wrote, "sadly marred and incomplete." It was, in his views, "a regression, a throwback to an earlier stage of O'Neill's development." Had the play been destroyed as O'Neill specifically directed before his death, its loss would have been negligible.1 In general, Mr. Brustein's appraisal is accurate; but the play has hovered about like a spectre of O'Neill's that would not go away. It was produced first by the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre. A greatly revised text was published in 1964; and now a major production employing the talents of Ingrid Bergman, Arthur Hill, and Colleen Dewhurst has been mounted in the United States. Detailed analysis, incomplete• and marred as the play well may be, seems justified.