The Dark Joy of Playing O'Neill

We become actors in pursuit of the joy of our art. But many actors approach O'Neill with more fear than joy.

One reason may be that his plays appear to demand a mastery of two contradictory styles, that of the European traditional theatre of the 19^th century and American contemporary theatre of the 20^th.

O'Neill lived from 1888 to 1953, during which the mannered European style that dominated the American stage in the 1900s was replaced by a uniquely native realism.  

Mourning Becomes Electra, which led to O'Neill's winning the Nobel Prize, was written in 1931 but is set in 1865. Stylistically, while both eras are alive in the play, it is also a play with a classical foundation, as a retelling of Aeschylus' The Oresteia.

To come to life in O'Neill's masterpiece the actor must transcend style and take possession of his imagination as inspired by the material.

But if within the course of working, the actor tightens or locks up, he will attempt to inhabit the world of this grand melodrama intellectually rather than intuitively.

Mourning calls for actors trained for both classical and contemporary theater. They must also have the flexibility to move freely within its broad range of dynamics, from its grand heights to its moments of simple truth.

This flexibility is essential to enjoying the very "dream of passion" that calls many actors to the their art. It is as important to playing the well-spoken inhabitants of Mourning Becomes Electra and Long Days Journey Into Night as to the sordid residents of the stoke-holes and bar rooms of The Hairy Ape and The Iceman Cometh.

The pleasure O'Neill's characters take in inflicting pain on themselves and each other is key to making his plays sing. It is a perverse pleasure, but one in which O'Neill's audiences have always taken their own.

O'Neill's dark joy is joy nonetheless. He once said, "Writing is my vacation from living." Many actors feel that way about acting.

To join O'Neill on his "vacation" is a special experience and is one that Resident Artists and Independent Artists have first-hand in The O'Neill Studio.