Boston Chosen as Site for Next International Conference in 2020 Fall 2018 O’Neill Society News The official newsletter of the Eugene O’Neill International Society Contents • O’Neill in New York and LA .............1 • Boston selected as the site of the 2020 conference .................................1 • Nancy, France Conference 2018....2 • ALA Conference May 2018 in San Francisco ................................................3 • “One Festival, Two Countries” in Danville, CA & New Ross, Ireland ..4 • News From Our Members ...............5 • ALA Conf 2019 Call for Papers .......5 • O’Neill One-Acts in Japan ................5 • Flock Theatre revives production of Long Day’s Journey into Night ....6 • Photos from O’Neill Events .............7 • Membership Renewals due Jan 1 .7 • MLA Conference participants ........8 • Rob Dowling tours China ................8 New York & Los Angeles Theatres • Upcoming Events in Society ..........8 filled with the sounds of O’Neill New York audiences were given the gift of two major productions of Boston Selected as plays by Eugene O’Neill in the spring of 2018. First, The Iceman Cometh the Site of the 2020 was given a Broadway staging with O’Neill Conference Denzel Washington in the lead role of Theodore “Hickey” Hickman and The membership of the O’Neill direction by George C. Wolfe. The play “laughed more often than I teared up,” Society voted at their May 26, 2018 opened at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre contrasting with other productions that business meeting that the site of the on April 26, and the cast featured some “tend to elicit adjectives like ‘searing’ next Eugene O’Neill International of Broadway’s most accomplished and ‘devastating’ (on the positive side) Conference will be Boston, MA. The character actors, including David and ‘narcotic’ and ‘way too long’ (on conference will be held in the summer Morse as Larry Slade, Frank Wood and the negative).” One new approach of 2020 and will take advantage of Bill Irwin as Lewis and Mosher, Colm of Wolfe and Washington was to engaging with the many sites in the Meaney as Harry Hope, and Dakin have Hickey deliver his monumental city with which O’Neill was involved. Matthews as Piet Wetjoen. Austin final monologue “in one,” sitting in Butler made an auspicious debut as a chair and talking directly to the Initial planning for the conference will the young Don Parritt. The production, audience. Brantley also felt that “with be helmed by O’Neill Society Board which performed at almost an hour its heightened performances and Chair Steve Bloom and Secretary/ shorter than typical, ran through July 1. tone-poem visuals, this production Treasurer Beth Wynstra, both of whom New York Times critic Ben Brantley also clearly elicits the musical nature live and work in the Boston area. Watch stated that “Mr. Wolfe’s energetic of ‘Iceman,’ which is in some ways for more details in the near future interpretation of this 1946 drama...is closer to opera or oratorio than it is to about this exciting Society gathering. likely to be divisive” because he conventional drama.” (Continued on p2) O’Neill Society News 1 O’Neill on Broadway, Brooklyn, LA (Continued from pg1) Los Angeles Times theatre critic Charles Soon after Iceman opened on McNulty in his review of the production Broadway, Brooklyn Academy of Music writes that the two main reasons to (BAM) presented the British production see the production were “Manville’s of O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night breathtaking performance as Mary directed by Richard Eyre and starring Tyrone, who is not played as an excuse Jeremy Irons and Leslie Manville. The for flamboyant virtuosity but as a production had begun in 2016 at the credible wife and mother imprisoned in Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continuously addiction,” and the other is “Irons’ suave O’Neillians working theatre in the English- and subtle portrayl of James Tyrone-- Participate at speaking world. Two years later, after one consummate actor stepping into Manville’s Academy Award-nominated the raffish skin of another.” Of the play, Nancy, France performance in the film Phantom McNulty writes that “O’Neill’s tragedy Thread with Daniel Day Lewis, the wounds without providing the salve IDEA Conference production was remounted in London’s of catharsis. But the acting artistry by David Palmer West End, came to BAM, and then went of Manville and Irons redeems this on to the Wallis Annenberg Center for grueling journey into the heart of a The Eugene O’Neill Society had two the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, family’s darkness.” Like the Broadway sessions at the 5th International CA, where, like the Broadway Iceman, it Iceman, this production shaved an hour Conference on American Drama and closed on July 1. off the play’s typical running time. Theater hosted by the Université de Lorraine in Nancy, France, June 4-6 IDEA Conference, con’t (https://idea-udl.org/migrations/). The of European writers on O’Neill, chaired by Glaspell Society member conference was co-sponsored by the particularly Saki, Gerhart Hauptmann, Emeline Jouve (Campollion University). American Theatre and Drama Society and Maurice Maeterlinck. Adel Bahroun Plenary talks were given by Susan (ATDS). Its theme was migration. (University of Kairouan, Tunisia) Abbotson (Rhode Island College), concluded the session with remarks who spoke on Arthur Miller; Annette In the first session, Jeff Kennedy (Arizona on how ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche Saddik (City University of New York), State University) discussed how core were developed by O’Neill in The Hairy who discussed grotesque drama; and ideas migrated through O’Neill’s works Ape (1922) and Long Day’s Journey into theatre luminaries Lee Breuer and as his career developed; Thierry Dubost Night (1941). Maude Mitchell, who in two different (Université de Caen Normandie) explored sessions spoke of their research and the theme of migration in O’Neill’s early Other O’Neill Society members Drew experimental theatre experiences one-act Fog (1914); and David Palmer Eisenhauer (Paris College of Art) in creating stage work, particularly (Massachusetts Maritime Academy) and Johan Callens (Vrije Universiteit on their recent pieces by and about spoke about changes in his own views Brussels) gave papers on panels Tennessee Williams. on O’Neill’s conception of tragedy based devoted to O’Neill’s Provincetown on seeing the depictions of Slade and Players colleague Susan Glaspell, along David Palmer is a Society Board Member Parritt in last spring’s George C. Wolfe and with a paper by Jeff Kennedy, and & our Conference Coordinator Denzel Washington production of The Society members Ryder Iceman Cometh. The session was chaired Thornton, Chloé Lucidarme, by Ciarán Leinster, an Irish graduate Adel Bahroun, Thierry student at the Universidad de Sevilla, Dubost, David Palmer, who also gave a paper in a session for Ciarán Leinster, and Johan the Arthur Miller Society on productions Callenspro in Nancy, France this of Miller’s and O’Neill’s plays in Latin summer America. Ryder Thornton (Tulane University) opened the second O’Neill panel with a paper on the American Dream in More Stately Mansions (written between 1936 and 1939). Chloé Lucidarme, a graduate student at the Université de Lorraine studying with conference coordinator John Bak, then spoke on the influence 2 O’Neill Society News Members enjoyed a tour Memorial Day Weekend 2018 was of Tao House by Wendy memorable for the Society as we Cooper, lunch by Wynstra combined our annual business Catering and a perfor- mance of Hughie meeting with the American Literature Association conference in San Francisco and took advantage of a gracious invitation from the Eugene O’Neill Foundation to spend a day at Tao House while we were there. The conference began with a series of papers organized by the Arthur Miller Society and chaired by O’Neill Society Secretary/Treasurer Beth Wynstra, titled “Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill: Dramatic Theory and the Business of Performance.” This panel included papers by members David Palmer (“Fate, Diginity, Love and Tragedy: O’Neill, Miller and Their Successors”), Foundation President Dan McGovern (“Performing Miller’s After the Fall, Lincoln Center, 1964”), and Foundation American Lit Conference 2018 in artistic director Eric Fraisher Hayes (“O’Neill and Miller in Repertory”). San Francisco Includes Visit to Tao On Friday, May 25, we crossed the bay House and Business Meeting via BART and were taken to Tao House, former home of Eugene and Carlotta Saturday was another full day that That afternoon, Steve Bloom O’Neill, now the only National Park began with a panel of papers chaired moderated a roundtable discussion dedicated to theatre in the country, by our Society Conference coordinator titled “Eugene O’Neill Today: Pedagogy, with programming and events led David Palmer titled “Eugene O’Neill: Dramaturgy and Transnationality” year-round by the Eugene O’Neill Context, Development, and Influence.” that featured participation by Robert Foundation. After a sumputous lunch Papers were given by Janet M. Roberts M. Dowling, Eric Fraisher Hayes, on the Tao House grounds, Society and (“Unmasking the Mask: Eugene O’Neill, Katie Johnson, Jeff Kennedy, Dan Foundation member Wendy Cooper Sam Shepard, and W. B. Yeats in an McGovern, Alex Pettit, Beth Wynstra led us on an informative tour of Tao Alternative Universe”), Lauren Luedtke and Mariette Ogg. This was followed by House. It’s always exciting to visit the (“All the World’s a Capitalist Structure: the Society’s annual Business Meeting site where O’Neill wrote some of his The Allegory of O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (minutes of this meeting are available monumental plays and to get a sense of through Performance”), and Isadora to be read on the Society’s website: his life while writing there, and Cooper’s Grevan de Carvalho (“The Influence of eugeneoneillsociety.org).