EUGENE O’NEILL: TEXT AND PERFORMANCE
Jackson R. Bryer
Dates:
Six Thursdays, March 8, March 15, March 22, April 12, April 19, April 26, 1 to 3 p.m.
Price:
$130 ($110 members)
Reading:
Ah, Wilderness! Samuel French Trade $9.95
Long Day’s Journey into Night 2nd edition, Yale University Press $12.95
Strange Interlude, included in 3 Plays: Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, Vintage (RH) $15.95
Strange Interlude, Eugene O’Neill
*Ah Wilderness! is being performed at Arena Stage on March 9-April 8, and Long Day’s Journey into Night from March 30-May 6. Special discounted tickets are available, as well, with details below.
Politics & Prose Saves at Arena Stage’s Eugene O’Neill Festival!
Come enjoy two classic shows at a discount on the following dates:
Ah, Wilderness!
Wednesday, March 14, 7:30 PM
Regular Seats: $42.50
Premium Seats: $53.00
Saturday, March 17, 2:00 PM
Regular Seats: $53.00
Premium Seats: $63.50
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Friday, March 30 at 8:00 PM
Regular Seats: $42.50
Premium Seats: $53.00
Sunday, April 1 at 7:30 PM
Regular Seats: $53.00
Premium Seats: $63.50
Call the Group Sales office at 202-488-4380 and mention this offer. Discounts are subject to availability, so call today!
Strange Interlude is being performed at the Shakespeare Theatre Company from March 27-April 29. For tickets please visit: http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/tickets/index.aspx
Eugene Gladstone O’Neill (1888-1953) is the only American playwright to
receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and the only American playwright
to be awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. He virtually
single-handedly transformed American drama from entertainment into a
serious literary form. Always striving to take dramatic literature into
new territory, he never repeated himself. Because three of his greatest
plays––two of which won the Pulitzer Prize––are being produced in early
2012 by two of Washington’s major theater companies, we have a unique
opportunity to consider them both as literature and in performance.
Accordingly, in March, the class will meet on three consecutive Thursday
afternoons to discuss, in chronological order, Strange Interlude (1928), Ah, Wilderness (1933), and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (completed
in 1940, but not produced until 1956). After a three-week break, during
which class members will have the opportunity to see the three plays in
production at the Shakespeare Theatre (Strange Interlude) and at Arena Stage (Ah, Wilderness! and Long Day’s Journey Into Night),
we will reconvene on three consecutive Thursday afternoons in April to
discuss the productions. An effort will be made to have persons involved
with the productions present at these discussions.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Jackson R. Bryer is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of
Maryland, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in
American drama for four decades. Among the books he has authored,
edited, or co-edited are “The Theatre We Worked For”: The Letters of Eugene O’Neill to Kenneth Macgowan (1982); Selected Letters of Eugene O’Neill (1988); Jason Robards Remembered: Essays and Recollections (2002); and The Provincetown Players and The Playwright’ Theatre, 1915-1922 by Edna Kenton (2004).
