Iceman Cometh Research Articles

Desire beyond the Château d'If

Desire beyond the Château d'If

Eugene O’Neill and the Celebration of The Other

The present paper examines Eugene O’Neill’s three selected plays, Anna Christie , The Iceman Cometh and The Hairy Ape , in the light of cultural studies by focusing on finding the notion of the "other", here women, blacks and the working class. The chosen groups here are among the ones that have been "otherized" by the white, male, bourgeois society. In this study, through the elements of cultural studies, it is shown that the mentioned groups are treated as Others because of their gender, class or race which are considered as inferior ones by the Power. We are going to find out that thinking in terms of binary oppositions is not an acceptable point of view in cultural studies. Therefore, the boundary between the superiority of the Power and inferiority of the Other is broken in this approach. O’Neill’s view point in the selected plays is in line with the core ideas in cultural studies. His wide point of view toward the events of his country and his pluralistic and skeptical outlook does not let any simple categorization or generalization takes place in his works. He criticizes the dominant discourses of the society and makes room for other voices to be heard.

Exorcism

<i>Exorcism</i>

Eugene O'Neill's Exorcism

Eugene O'Neill's <i>Exorcism</i>

(Surprised)

(<i>Surprised</i>)

The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh

Exorcism: A Play of Anti-Climax

<i>Exorcism: A Play of Anti-Climax</i>

Exorcism, or the Road Not Taken

<i>Exorcism</i>, or the Road Not Taken

O'Neill after Exorcism

O'Neill after <i>Exorcism</i>

New Girl in Town

New Girl in Town

Foreword

With the much-anticipated productions of The Iceman Cometh at the Goodman and Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Apollo Theatre in London now closed, the rest of the 2012 season might seem a letdown, though we have more than just the memory of Nathan Lane's Hickey to give us hope for tomorrow. O'Neill's late classics continue to receive major revivals, with the Eclipse Theatre in Chicago concluding its season-long exploration of O'Neill with Long Day's Journey, Les Waters choosing the same play for his debut as the new artistic director of the Actor's Theatre of Louisville, and the Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company staging A Moon for the Misbegotten for its inaugural production—all in the fall of 2012. Next season already looks promising, with the Guthrie Theatre producing Long Day's Journey and the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC, producing Hughie.However much of this season has been dominated by talk about revivals of these classics, 2012 was significant for productions of a wide range of O'Neill's earlier plays. The Playwright's Theatre in Danville gave a staged reading of Exorcism and produced Diff'rent, while the Role Players Ensemble produced Ah! Wilderness as part of Danville's annual O'Neill Festival. Two productions of Exorcism are in the works, one in Manhattan and the other in South Camden, New Jersey—five productions, to date, of this recently rediscovered play that has a remarkable potential to inform how actors, directors, and audiences view Edmund from Long Day's Journey. The Hairy Ape was revived in St. Louis, and Desire Under the Elms was produced at the Lyric Hammersmith in London—all in fall 2012. Toronto's Shaw Festival announced its 2013 season, which will include O'Neill's first play, A Wife for a Life, in a double bill with Susan Glaspell's Trifles, an intriguing pairing given the complex ways that the plays represent gender.One of the most intriguing trends of this season, however, has been experiments with O'Neill's plays and life that follow The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill. Begotten, written and directed by Derek Goldman and reviewed in this issue, takes audiences through a range of O'Neill plays and techniques as well as inside the playwright. Another play, Morphing, written and directed by Matthew Posey, played at the Ochre House in Dallas and was described by reviewers as an “absurdist spoof” of Long Day's Journey.If 2012 tells us anything, it's that O'Neill's plays and life remain a touchstone in theater today, nearly a hundred years after O'Neill announced his ambition to be “an artist or nothing.” Given how much O'Neill influences and inspires directors, actors, playwrights, and audiences, it's safe to say this was a year that affirmed O'Neill's achievement.

The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh

Editor's Foreword

One hundred years after that most important year in Eugene O'Neill's life, his plays are enjoying compelling and innovative productions, nationally and internationally. O'Neill's late plays, two of which center on events from 1912, have been well represented lately, including the Goodman Theater's much-anticipated revival of The Iceman Cometh with Nathan Lane as Hickey. But other late plays have been revisited, with no fewer than four productions of Long Day's Journey Into Night, including productions in Toronto and London's West End, with David Suchet as James Tyrone; no fewer than three productions of A Moon for the Misbegotten, one of which is reviewed in this issue; as well as productions of A Touch of the Poet and Hughie.Many of O'Neill's earlier works have enjoyed revivals during this same period, including Desire Under the Elms, which was given an engaging production in Pasadena; two productions of Beyond the Horizon (one reviewed here), “Anna Christie” in San Diego. Marco Millions and Mourning Becomes Electra are being mounted in China. Some companies have experimented with the Glencairn Plays, finding surprising dramatic possibilities therein: Early Plays in New York City (reviewed here) and The Sea Plays in London, which were staged in the Old Vic tunnels to some acclaim. There has even been talk of a production of Lazarus Laughed as a miracle play at Christ Our Hope, in Seattle, though the production was postponed.And the publication of Exorcism, the lost play set in 1912, has already generated excitement about staging this controversial early play, a glimpse into the dire moment when Eugene O'Neill the playwright almost didn't happen. It's a play O'Neill hoped would never be seen again. At least two companies, the Marvell Repertory Theatre in New York City and the South Camden Theatre Company in New Jersey, have announced productions for the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013 respectively.The enthusiasm surrounding productions of O'Neill's plays demonstrates that his body of work continues to challenge, move, and even surprise audiences with his representation of some of the defining questions of human experience, questions that may resonate for another hundred years.

Gothic Domesticity in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms

Gothic Domesticity in Eugene O'Neill's <i>Desire Under the Elms</i>

The iceman cometh

The iceman cometh

O'Neill's “Damned Unconventional” Play from the Prohibition Years: “Anna Christie”

O'Neill's “Damned Unconventional” Play from the Prohibition Years: <i>“Anna Christie”</i>

Review

Review

The New Deal Cometh: Examining The Iceman Cometh and Hughie in Relation to the Rhetoric of the Roosevelt Administration

The New Deal Cometh: Examining <i>The Iceman Cometh</i> and <i>Hughie</i> in Relation to the Rhetoric of the Roosevelt Administration

Broadway and corporate capitalism: the rise of the professional managerial class, 1900-1920

1. To Stop the World: The Most Stupendous Impossibles 2. Where Do I Get Off At? The Wobblies Spurns the Hairy Ape 3. No Kick Coming: The Romantic Wobbly of Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted 4. Jazzing the Wobblies: John Howard Lawson's Processionals 5. Dead Hand of the Dead: Anderson and Hickerson's Gods of the Lightning 6. We Even Sing 'em in Jap and Chink: Upton Sinclair's Workers' Theater Contribution 7. You I-Won't Work Harp: I.W.W. Elegy in The Iceman Cometh 8. Postscript: Not Time Yet

Eugene O’Neill’s Wavering Estimation of Dreams and Illusions in The Hairy Ape, The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey into Night

Eugene O’Neill seems to have fostered a wavering estimation about the self- annihilating dreams and illusions of his characters. This particular characteristic of O’Neill has changed significantly during the progress of his career as a dramatist. The present study intends to show how far this attitude of O’Neill has changed. The study will examine three of O’Neill’s masterpieces and will try to trace the degree of change observable in his view of dreams and illusions of his characters. In The Hairy Ape O’Neill has handled the issue of dreams and illusions with a view to bringing the characters back to reality. In The Iceman Cometh his approach to dreams changes and this play portrays his characters as more inclined towards such dreams and it also marks the beginning form where O’Neill has changed his strategy. Finally, in Long Day’s Journey into Night O’Neill deals with the issue of dreams and illusions differently. At the beginning of his career his attitude towards such illusions and ‘pipe dreams’ was one of disapproval but towards the end of his career we notice that his understanding has changed and he acknowledges the necessity of such dreams and illusions as props and crutches in the lives of ordinary human beings