Newsletter Eugene O’Neill Winter 2015 issue Foundation, Tao House Beyond the Horizon Kicks Off 2016 "A SEASON OF FIRSTS" Beyond the Horizon Playwright's Theatre will be presented in a staged reading of the play at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, Eric Fraisher Hayes 205 Railroad Ave, Danville Beyond the Horizon put Eugene on Saturday, January 9th at 8pm and O’Neill on the map. The play won the Sunday, January 10th at 2pm. 1920 Pulitzer Prize for drama and opened Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the doors of Broadway to O’Neill. It was www.eugeneoneill.org Space is limited. the first of his four Pulitzer prize-winning plays. Beyond the Horizon is the EONF’s follow-up to the Eugene O’Neill 16th Annual Festival’s sold-out September run of Desire under the Elms. It was O’Neill’s Robert tells Ruth first serious attempt at telling the story of about his feelings in "Beyond the a poet/dreamer struggling to balance his Horizon" dreams with the responsibilities of life. Continued on Page 2 Photo Credit: Alistair Muir Inside This issue pg 1 Playwright's Theatre: Beyond the Horizon pg 6 ACT's Ah, Wilderness! Review pg 2 Celebrating Two Centennials Pg 7 NPS Report pg 2 Great Performances/PBS: Beyond the Horizon Pg 8 Eileen Hermann: Course Announcement pg 3 Panel Discussion: Desire Through the Ages Pg 8 Tao House: Lao Zi and Featured Item pg 4 16th Annual Festival Review Pg 9 East Bound for Cardiff: Centennial Year pg 4 Artists in Residence Report: Adrienne Pender Pg 9 Book Review: American Writers at Home pg 5 Back Stage Tao House Old Barn: Desire Under Pg 10 Donor and Board Member list the Elms page 2 winter 2015 issue Celebrating Two Playwright’s Theatre (continued from page 1) Centennials Honoring "A Season of Firsts," in The idea of the "horizon" being the Gary Schaub July 2016, the Eugene O'Neill place where dreams come true was Foundation will celebrate the 100th revisited by O’Neill in Desire under As the Eugene O’Neill Foundation moves into anniversary of the first play by the Elms a few years later. In Elms, its forty-first year, two important centennials O'Neill, Bound East for Cardiff, the sons of the Cabot farm, weary will be celebrated at Tao House, the Eugene produced on the stage in of a life of toil, look to the light on O’Neill National Historic Site in Danville. Not Provincetown, Massachusetts. the horizon as the gold of only is 2016 the 100th anniversary of the O'Neill's first Pulitzer Prize winning California and the better life it National Park Service, which operates the would bring. In Beyond the Horizon historic home site in Danville, but the coming play, Beyond the Horizon follows the story of Robert and Andrew Mayo, the golden light represents more year also marks the centennial for O’Neill’s than money, it represents the first produced play. On July 28, 1916, Bound two brothers who grew up together on a family farm, but dream of very longing of the soul. This yearning East for Cardiff, (written in 1914, published in different futures. Robert is anxious became a major theme in O’Neill’s 1916) was first produced on Lewis Wharf in to leave the farm, to see the world work and life. Provincetown, Massachusetts, while the and experience all that it has to offer. playwright was spending the summer with Beyond the Horizon will be presented like-minded Bohemians. Andrew feels very connected to the farm and hopes to spend his life in a reading of the play by actors staying where he is and working the who include John Tessmer, who has This was just the beginning for O’Neill whose land. The brothers find themselves in acted in 100 plays, musicals and productivity and popularity grew over the a competition for the affection of the staged readings, including the years. O’Neill went on to win four Pulitzer Shakespeare Festival at the same woman. When Robert wins her Prizes in Drama, and remains the only winner University of Colorado, Boulder, heart, Andrew finds the prospect of and Valerie Weak, a faculty member of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1936) ever staying on the farm impossible and of the A.C.T. Conservancy. awarded to an American playwright. At Tao leaves in search of his life. Robert House in the Danville hills, where Eugene wins the woman but ends up O’Neill and his wife Carlotta lived from anchoring himself to a life on the Beyond the Horizon will be 1937-1944, O’Neill penned his most notable farm. presented as a staged reading plays, including Long Day’s Journey into at the Museum of the San Ultimately, the play is a cautionary Night, The Iceman Cometh, and A Moon for Ramon Valley, 205 Railroad tale about not pursuing your inner the Misbegotten. The playwright is regarded Ave, Danville compass. Andrew travels the world as “The Father of American Drama.” on Saturday, January 9th at 8 pm already knowing his heart is back on Performances of O’Neill works will start with and Sunday, January 10th at 2pm. a Playwrights’ Theatre staged reading of the farm and Robert suffers living Tickets are $25 and can be Beyond the Horizon – O’Neill’s first Pulitzer on the farm, forgoing his dreams of purchased at Prize. exploring the world “beyond the www.eugeneoneill.org. Continued on Pg 7 horizon.” Space is limited. BEYOND THE HORIZON Great Performances PBS Some historical facts Beyond The Horizon was first produced Beyond the Horizon (17 July 1975) by John D. Williams at a special matinee TV Episode | 90 min | Biography, Drama, Music performance at the Morosco Theater, New York City, February 2, 1920. It ran Directors: Rick Hauser, Michael Kahn for 111 performances and won O’Neill’s Writer: Eugene O'Neill (play) first Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The play Stars: Richard Backus, Kate Wilkinson, John was also adapted into an opera by Randolph, Geraldine Fitzgerald. composer Nicholas Flagello in 1983. Revived by Royal & Derngate, An Irish American actress in an Irish American Playwright’s Northampton, England in November plays: Geraldine Fitzgerald appeared in revivals of Eugene 2009, the play was transferred to London's National Theatre in March O'Neill; she received kudos as Mary Tyrone in a 1971 off- 2010. In February-April, 2012, Beyond Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey into Night" the Horizon was produced by the Irish opposite Robert Ryan. She was also in the 1977 Broadway Repertory, directed by Ciaran O’Reilly. revival of "A Touch of the Poet". www.irishrep.org/beyondthehorizon.html 12 page 3 winter 2015 issue “Desire through the Ages” Bill says, in O’Neill’s tragedies, he sees desire as the light illuminating human feeling and By Janet Roberts informing human action. Desires are the source Poet Amy Glynn jump started the 2015 Eugene of a cycle of heartbreak. He says that, like O’Neill festival Desire Through the Ages panel by O’Neill, his family was “from hell”. He also faces quoting the Tao: “Always without desire we must be ghosts in life. All people face choices with found, /If its deep mystery we would sound;/ But if consequences. If we see desire at the base of the desire always within us be, /Its outer fringe is all that seven deadly sins, how do we absolve our guilt we shall see.” and find redemption? Desire as a source of all creativity was a focus Concluding the discussion, Amy Glynn cites a through the 20th century. Indigo Moor, poet and lyrical phrase from a Tom Waits' song: “if we playwright who is very involved in San Francisco’s vanquish our devils, our angels will also flee.” LitQuake 2015 served as an effective moderator for the discussion. Panelists were Chris Cassell, play Amy continues: “Many artists believe torment director; Bill Carmel, sculptor and painter, and and spiritual poverty are a sort of fuel for their Adrienne Pender, A.I.R (TRAVIS BOGARD ARTIST IN work. You can be a happy balanced person and RESIDENCE) playwright, along with organizer and create profound and beautiful art. However, Poet/Novelist Amy Glynn. when we do experience traumas and tragedies, artistic re-rendering is really effective.” On Writing: Amy Glynn suggests writers write stories to find Amy feels she sprang from the womb looking closure, whereas Chris Cassell, play director, thinks for connections; unrequited love is the desire the writer needs to consider the audience, as when upon which she focuses. In the novel she is playwrights write, their thinking decides feeling. now writing, her agent does not want a happy Adrienne Pender believes a writer needs to consider ending; to be too optimistic is not realistic. A all perspectives and feels that desire instructs us that writer walks a tight rope. sexual desire has consequences, which is certainly witnessed in Desire Under the Elms. On Words and Painting: Amy thinks when she sees a Mark Rothko painting, “There are no words for how to do that!” Bill, who works as a sculptor and painter, feels that words follow his creations and are not what he uses to create. On Desire: As a poet, Amy says, “I would say that I find a wellspring for poetry writing in the tension between the aspect of desire that keeps us alive and vital, Amy Glynn and Indigo Moor and the aspect that tears us apart.” Bill Carmel and Chris Cassell Chris makes a plea for womens’ issues, in the longing of Blanche for what she cannot have, in O'Neill's play adapted into opera in China Streetcar.