CONTENTS

ESSAYS:

BOOK REVIEWS

PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

SOCIETY NEWS, NOTES AND COMMENT

AMONG OUR CONTRIBUTORS

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EDITOR'S FOREWORD

Please grant me a moment on one of my favorite soapboxes just this once. Given the life and vitality of the O’Neill Society Newsletter, the Review no longer lists all the forthcoming O’Neill productions of which we get word—mostly from scanning the New York Times and “On Stage,” a listing of productions throughout the country that appears in every issue of the Theatre Communication Group’s journal, American Theatre. But we go on scanning, mostly from force of habit, and the results are interesting as gauges of O’Neill’s current popularity play by play.

The March 2002 performance listing in the Theatre Communication Group’s journal American Theatre included, for example, six productions of four O’Neill works: two of The Hairy Ape (Mill Valley, CA, mid-March to early April; and Cleveland, on almost the same dates), two of Ah, Wilderness! (Atlanta, ended March 2; and Minneapolis, late February to mid-May), and one each of Moon for the Misbegotten (Cleveland, mid- to late March), and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (the Goodman in Chicago, dir. Robert Falls, through 6 April).

Would that more works were trotted across the boards periodically, lest O’Neill’s visible oeuvre diminish to yet fewer than the current barely-a-handful. Such riches, early and late, languish in libraries, alas. If interested theatre departments and innovative playhouses would just search beyond the “greatest hits” and try a new approach to Beyond the Horizon, say, or Marco Millions, the O’Neill canon might regain its old visibility and popularity. I, for one, would wish most devoutly for such a consummation.

The current issue, which is no slouch in the size and depth departments, begins and ends (in the opening essay section) with contributions from three of the Review’s longest and dearest friends: Madeline C. Smith and Richard B. Eaton, the redoubtable bibliographical duo; and Sheila Hickey Garvey, the current president of the O’Neill Society and a major recorder of the history of O’Neill’s plays in performance. Between those contributions it’s a special pleasure for me—and for you all too, I hope—to welcome a glittering array of newer members of the O’Neill family, whose work bodes very well for the health, and breadth, of O’Neill studies in the fertile years ahead. All or most will be back, I’m sure.

I know of but one cloud on the Society horizon just now, and that is the recent death, at the age of 81, of John Henry Raleigh, Travis Bogard’s longtime O’Neill-studies partner at Berkeley whose Plays of Eugene O’Neill (1965) remains one of the essential volumes in any serious O’Neill collection just over a third of a century since its first appearance. Jack was part of the O’Neill Newsletter and Review from each’s start, appearing in the former’s “preview issue” (January 1977), a transcript of a panel discussion at MLA ‘75 in San Francisco. The subject I had devised for Frisco was “The Enduring O’Neill: Which Plays Will Survive?” and Jack was both sage and witty in his division of the O’Neill oeuvre into six ascending clumps from “real clunkers” to “the great plays.” He could be both deep and powerful in his pronouncements; but there was always, as well, an elfin twinkle that I think is captured in the nearby photo of Jack at the conference on O’Neill’s “later years” at Suffolk University in 1986. We will miss him.

Incidentally, Jack’s successor on the Review’s board of Advisory Editors is Zander Brietzke of the College of Wooster, the Society’s current Vice President, who is rapidly acquiring a major place in the hierarchy of O’Neill notables. I welcome Zander to the board, and I wish you all a happy year ahead.

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Editor
FREDERICK C. WILKINS, Suffolk University
Managing Editor
THOMAS F. CONNOLLY, Suffolk University
Associate Editor
MARSHALL BROOKS, Spencer, Massachusetts
Publication Coordinator
INGRID STRANGE, Suffolk University
Theatre Review Editor
ROBERT S. MCLEAN, City University of New York
Book Review Editor
STEVEN F. BLOOM, Lasell College

Advisory Editors
JUDITH E. BARLOW, State University of New York, Albany
NORMAND BERLIN, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
ZANDER BRIETZKE, The College of Wooster
JACKSON R. BRYER, University of Maryland
FRANK R. CUNNINGHAM, University of South Dakota
MICHAEL MANHEIM, University of Toledo
RONALD H. WAINSCOTT, Indiana University
GARY VENA, Manhattan College

The Eugene O’Neill Review (ISSN 10409483) is published twice a year (Spring and Fall issues) by Suffolk University, in cooperation with the Eugene O’Neill Society, whose members receive copies as part of their memberships. (For information on member­ship, write to the Eugene O’Neill Society, P.O. Box 402, Danville, CA 94526.) Non­member subscription rates are $15/year for individuals in the U.S. and Canada, $25/ year for all institutional and overseas subscribers. Back issues are available at $10 each. Checks and money orders for non-member subscriptions and back-issues payments (U.S. dollars only) should be payable to The Eugene O’Neill Review and should be sent to the publication coordinator, Department of English, Suffolk University, 41 Temple Street, Boston, MA 02114-4280.

We welcome articles, reviews and news concerning the life, times and work of Eugene O’Neill. Submitters should send two copies of their work, together with a brief auto­biographical note, to the appropriate editor: books for review and book reviews to Steven F. Bloom, Associate Dean, School of Arts and Sciences, Lasell College, 1844 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton MA 02466; performance reviews and photographs/graphics to Robert McLean, c/o Department of English, Suffolk University, 41 Temple Street, Boston, MA 02114-4280; all other materials to Thomas F. Connolly at the same address (tel. 617-573-8271).

Copyright © 2000 by The Eugene O’Neill Review & Suffolk University ISSN: 1040-9483