The American Legacy
Metropolitan Playhouse
The American Legacy

220 East Fourth Street ~ New York, New York 10009
Office: 212 995 8410 ~ Tickets: 212 995 5302

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The Pioneer
5 plays by Eugene O'Neill



 
                 Metropolitan Playhouse has long made the case that American theater began well before Eugene O'Neill appeared on the scene.  But we are more than a little pleased to hear his distinct voice into our theater. 
Still, always interested in going where others do not, we bring some not-so-well-known O’Neill to the stage.

            The story goes that in 1916, Susan Glaspell, a co-founder of The Provincetown Players and the author of Inheritors  (Metropolitan,  2006), heard a young man had arrived in Provincetown with a trunkful of plays.  Her typically frank response: "We don't need a trunkful, but if he's got one good play, bring him around."  He surely had more than one.

            O'Neill's early plays, before his 1920 Broadway debut with Beyond the Horizon, consist mainly of one-acts. Feelingly exploring the themes that haunt his later work, they describe the burden of domestic fealty, the gulf between social classes, and the longings of humanity high and low.  They are set on the high seas and foreign battlefields, as well as in bourgeois kitchens and urban slums.  In The Pioneer, we present four very early plays, along with one seldom-seen soliloquy, for a full evening of essential O'Neill, and one that reveals and beguiles as it unfolds.

            Usually one thinks of  "sketches" as unfinished, half-developed experiments: doodles. But would we say so of Leonardo's charcoals, or Picasso's ?  No more are O'Neill's early one acts mere drafts: they are complete, carefully crafted and richly observed studies in character and relationships.  Surely, these prescient and penetrating early dramas set the model for his later works both in style and substance, but they are each whole worlds of their own. Seen together in one evening, they are revelatory, illuminating a moral vision, a sentimental love, an ironic wit, and a poetic character that is constant throughout his work.

             "The Web" is a New York City story, in which a tubercular prostitute longs for a better life for herself and her infant child -- a life to which a sympathetic gangster may just hold the keys.

"Ile" is the tale of a whaling captain to rival Ahab, torn between love for his suffering wife and pride for his driving passion: the pursuit of the whale and its precious "ile."

            In the surprising comedy "The Movie Man," a canny  filmmaker is set to exploit a revolution in Mexico, so long as he can impress a girl and keep the battles raging when the light is right.

"Before Breakfast" skates lightly over tragedy, as a carping and critical wife tries to manage her sensitive, "artistic" husband.


            And "The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O'Neill" presents advice to mankind from the only clearheaded member of the O'Neill household as he approaches his final days-a well-loved Dalmatian.

            We call the evening "The Pioneer" because unquestionably, Eugene O'Neill was one. Beyond the Horizon, Long Days Journey Into Night,  Ah, Wilderness! -- the very titles take us on a journey into the wild.  And he strode in subject and theme into the wilderness of the heart. While he was recognized and welcomed by the kindred spirits who first produced his work , he was clearly striking out into new territory.  In the shadow of WWI, he put on stage a new relationship to the human psyche, heart, and the dramatic medium.

Metropolitan's commitment to exploring the rich history of American theater is driven by the same restless drive to look deeply into our cultural life.  Like opening the door to a long lost friend, we are delighted to welcome Eugene O'Neill to the Metropolitan stage.


--Alex Roe






 


Photo Credits:
From top to Bottom...
1) Ile Andrew Firda and Keri Setaro
2) The Movie Man - Michael Hardart and David Patrick Ford
3) The Movie Man - Michael Hardart and Keri Setaro
4) The Web - Michael Hardart, Keri Setaro, and David Patrick Ford
 
All Photos by Michelle DeBlasi



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