This was my first foray into Eugene O'Neill, and I thought i should start with one of his early Pullitzer winning plays. O'Neill sets the play up in a most obvious way. Beyond the Horizon is the play about two brothers, Andrew and Robert. one brother is more poetic and the other is more earthly. While gathering this most simple distinction from the copious amounts of stage description and direction notes, which may have actually exceeded the dialogue in length, I almost regretted starting the play. "Oh no, not another play where poetry and earthly man conflict". But I was a little surprised when O'Neill, playing with dramatic conventions, decided to switch the roles of the protagonists. The poet was stuck married at the farm and had to eek out his existence through manual labor. And the farmer was thrust into the world to have his Byronic adventures. And both failed miserably. The play was simplistic in language and the ideas were somewhat heavy-handed. Despite the flaws, this play still worked on the basic level of getting his somewhat pedestrian ideas out there, wherever 'there' is.
The one thing I noticed almost immediately was the amount of stage direction in the play. There was nothing left unsaid by O'Neill. he apparently had a vision of who the stage should look, and even how the actors should act and appear. He leaves no room for dramatic interpretation.
I noticed all that stage direction when I read Long Day's Journey Into Night. I remember liking it because it was almost like reading a novel.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing too. Though I think I prefer a dramatic novel like Of Mice and Men, and other ones Steinbeck wrote.
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