A Touch of the Poet
In 1828 Massachusetts, ageing tavern owner Major Cornelius Melody is a braggart and social climber, struggling against the American class system and the loss of his self-image.
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In 1828 Massachusetts, ageing tavern owner Major Cornelius Melody is a braggart and social climber, struggling against the American class system and the loss of his self-image.
Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. It differs from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a happy family in turn-of-the-century America. It is O'Neill's only well-known comedy. The play was successful in its first Broadway production and the touring production that followed. It has since become a staple of community repertory.
Jim Harris, a Black man determined to become a lawyer, marries Ella, a white woman whose insecurity and racism undermine his ambitions. Across fifteen years, their relationship deteriorates under external prejudice and Ella’s control, while Jim repeatedly fails the bar exam and ultimately gives up trying.
Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around. The first act takes place in a bar owned by Johnny the Priest and tended by Larry. Coal-barge captain Old Chris receives a letter from his daughter, a young woman he has not seen since he lived in Sweden with his family and she was five years old. They meet at the bar and she agrees to go to the coal barge with him. The barge crew rescues Mat Burke and four other men who survived a shipwreck in an open boat. Anna and Mat don't get along at first, but quickly fall in love. A confrontation on the barge among Anna, Chris and Mat. Mat wants to marry Anna, Chris does not want her to marry a sailor, and Anna doesn't want either of them to think they can control her. She tells them the truth about her past: She was raped while living with her mother's relatives on a Minnesota farm, worked briefly as a nurse's aide, then became a prostitute. Mat reacts angrily, and he and Chris leave. Mat and Chris return. Anna forgives Chris for not being part of her childhood. After a dramatic confrontation, Anna promises to abandon prostitution and Mat forgives her. Chris agrees to their marriage. Chris and Mat have both signed to work aboard a ship that is leaving for South Africa the next day. They promise to return to Anna after the voyage.
Act I Robert Mayo is sitting on the fence line of his family's farm, contemplating the horizon. He has dreamed of leaving the farm and travelling so he wouldn't live in one place. The next morning, Robert will sail with his maternal uncle, Captain Dick Scott, on the Sunda to visit the foreign places he has only dreamed and read about. Robert's elder brother, Andrew, wants to stay on the farm and keep working on it. Andrew is engaged to Ruth Atkins, a woman Robert has been in love with. On the eve of Robert's departure, he confesses his feelings to Ruth and she reveals that she also loves him and had only agreed to marry Andrew out of the mistaken belief Robert doesn't love her back. Robert decides to stay on the farm and marry Ruth. Upset over losing Ruth to Robert, Andrew hastily chooses to join his uncle. The family patriarch, James Mayo, persuades Andrew to stay. But Andrew still leaves with Captain Scott yet harbors no ill will to Robert. Act II Two years after his oldest son left to travel the world, Mr. Mayo dies. When another year passes, life on the Mayo family's farm has deteriorated due to Robert lacking the farming skills his brother has. Robert's mother, Kate Mayo, says Robert cannot help the deterioration, but his mother-in-law, Mrs. Atkins, retorts that all his hard work has yielded nothing. In the three years, Ruth discovers that all that charmed her about her husband no longer holds the same allure and their daughter, Mary, is as irritable and sickly as he was in his own youth. Ruth insists to Robert that she should have seen his "true self" and killed herself before they had married. This revelation embitters Robert and he continues to let the farm deteriorate. The Mayo family hopes for Andrew's homecoming. Having finished his three-year apprenticeship on the Sunda, Andrew wants to help, but has lost his money on ill-advised land speculation and must travel to Argentina to recoup his losses. He promises to return and restore the farm to its former glory. Ruth pleads with Andrew to stay, but he leaves on the first available ship to South America. Act III Five years pass by, and both Mrs. Mayo and Mary have died. The farm has been ruined and Robert himself is seriously ill from tuberculosis. Andrew returns poor again due to illegitimate trading and he brings a doctor to Robert, but the disease has become terminal. Now a broken man, Robert drags himself to the fence line one last time so he can observe the horizon and imagine the travels he would never experience.
On a New England farm, Eben resents his father Ephraim for his mother’s death. When Ephraim remarries, Eben and his stepmother Abbie become lovers; their struggle over the farm ends in the killing of their child and their joint arrest.
Edward Thomas’s American folk opera adapts Eugene O’Neill’s drama Desire Under the Elms, which in turn draws on Euripides’ Hippolytus.
Setting: The parlor of home on a side street of a seaport village in New England in 1890. Emma is engaged to an older man, a sea captain named Caleb. She discovers that he was briefly unfaithful while at sea and calls off the wedding. In the seaport village, the women tended to accept the promiscuity of the men who work at sea. Emma however, expected her future husband to be of different nature than the sailors in the village. Setting: The same location in 1920. 30 years go by, but the ageing sea captain still hopes that he can marry his former fiancé from 1890, Emma. Caleb's sister Harriet and her husband, Alfred, have raised their son Benny, who has now returned to the seaside from a tour of duty in World War I, where he had been stationed in France. Benny becomes good friends with Emma, who he sometimes calls Aunt Emma. On the stage, the audience sees that Benny is having various financial problems and has hatched a plan. However, the audience does not know what it is. Emma does not know that Benny was actually a grifter and charlatan. Caleb later arrives and notices how her home has changed. Emma explains that in the last two weeks, the "gloomy and old-timey" look of the house started to bother her so changed the style to "light and airy and young-looking". Caleb explains to Emma Benny's real character, his dishonesty and so on. Caleb also points out that he, however, has always been honest with her, especially after expressing regret for the unfortunate act. Emma declares that she is going to marry Benny. Caleb, clearly upset, tells Emma that he would rather pay Benny to cancel the wedding than see Emma suffer with a terrible mistake. Caleb tells Emma that he had always thought she was "diff'rent" than the rest of the people in the village. However, he now finds her the same as everyone else, but just more mentally ill. After Caleb leaves, Benny returns. Benny tells Emma that he will take the bribe from Caleb to not marry her. Benny was using Emma as if she were property that he could negotiate with. Emma is overwhelmed with shock of Benny explaining this to her. Emma later learns of Caleb's suicide, and she begins to exit, intending to join Caleb.
The religious Light family and atheist Fife family are neighbors divided by conflict. Their children Reuben and Ada fall in love; after Reuben leaves and returns changed, he treats the hydroelectric dynamos as a god, brings Ada to them, shoots her and electrocutes himself.
As Ezra Mannon returns from the Civil War, his daughter Lavinia confronts her mother Christine about her affair with Adam Brant. Christine agrees to end the affair but instead poisons Ezra when he threatens her; his dying words expose her guilt to Lavinia.
In a Manhattan hotel lobby in 1928, small-time hustler Erie Smith delivers a long monologue to new night clerk Charlie Hughes, lamenting his bad luck since the death of Hughes's predecessor, Hughie.
The crew of a small tramp steamer face the strains of life at sea during the First World War.
After Lazarus returns from the dead, he proclaims that death does not exist and that life is eternal laughter. Jews, Romans, and Greeks test his faith; despite the loss of his family and his own execution by Tiberius, he maintains his belief.
The play takes place on a single day in August 1912. The setting is Monte Cristo Cottage, the seaside home of the Tyrones in Connecticut. The four main characters are the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill, his older brother, and their parents, including his father, actor James O'Neill. The play portrays a family struggling to grapple with the realities and consequences of each member's failings. The parents and two sons blame and resent each other for various reasons; bitterness and jealousy serve as proxies for ultimately failed attempts at tenderness and compassion. The family's enduring emotional and psychological stress is fueled by their shared self-analysis, combined with articulate honesty. The story deals with addiction, unfulfilled dreams, moral flaws, and the struggle of family relationships.
In 1832 Massachusetts, Simon Harford's mother and wife battle to control him through love. Set against the Industrial Revolution, their struggle leads to tragedy and despair.
Act I It is late spring in front of the Mannon house. The master of the house, Brigadier-General Ezra Mannon, is soon to return from the Civil War. Lavinia, Ezra's daughter, like her mother Christine, has just returned from a trip to New York. Seth, the gardener, takes Lavinia aside. He warns her against her would-be beau, Captain Brant. Before Seth can continue, Lavinia's friend Peter Niles and his sister, Hazel, arrive. If Peter is proposing marriage to Lavinia again, he must realize she cannot marry anyone because her father needs her. Seth asks Lavinia if she has noticed that Brant resembles members of the Mannon family. Seth believes Brant is the child of David Mannon (Ezra's uncle, who later hanged himself) and Marie Brantôme (a French Canadian nurse), a couple expelled from the house due to fear of scandal and public disgrace. Suddenly Brant himself enters from the drive. Calculatingly, Lavinia derides the memory of Brant's mother, who died of starvation as Ezra never replied to a message she sent for help. Brant explodes and reveals his heritage. He tells Lavinia that her own grandfather (Ezra's father) also craved his mother and thus cast David out of the family. Brant has sworn vengeance. Act II Lavinia appears inside her father's study. Christine enters indignantly, wondering why Lavinia has summoned her. Lavinia reveals that she followed her to New York and saw her kissing Adam Brant. Christine defiantly tells Lavinia that she has long hated Ezra and that Lavinia was born of her disgust for him. She loves Lavinia's brother Orin because he always seemed to be hers alone, and never Ezra's. Lavinia says that she will keep her mother's adultery a secret for Ezra's sake but Christine must promise to never see Brant again. Christine accuses her daughter of wanting Brant for herself. Christine then appears to agree to Lavinia's terms but proposes to Brant that they poison Ezra and attribute his death to his heart trouble. Act III One week later, Lavinia stands at the top of the front stairs with Christine waiting for Ezra. When he arrives, Lavinia rushes forward and embraces him. Once Ezra is alone with his wife, he impulsively kisses her hand. The war has made him realize that they must put aside their differences. Christine agrees. They kiss and, for the first time in many years, share a bed. Act IV Toward daybreak in Ezra's bedroom, Christine slips out. Ezra, waking, bitterly rebukes her. He believes Christine awaits his death. Later, she deliberately taunts him that she is Brant's mistress. Ezra rises in fury, threatening to kill her but falls back, clutching his heart and begging for his medicine. Christine gives him poison instead. After taking it, Ezra realizes her treachery and calls out to Lavinia. Lavinia rushes into the room. With his dying breath, Ezra indicts his wife: "She's guilty — not medicine!", he gasps, and then dies. Christine collapses in a faint, and Lavinia falls to her knees in anguish. Act I Peter, Lavinia, and Orin arrive at the house. Orin complains of his mother's absence. He jealously asks Lavinia about Christine and Brant. Lavinia warns him against believing their mother to be innocent of an affair. Suddenly, Christine appears and embraces her son jubilantly. Act II Orin asks his mother about Brant. Christine explains that Lavinia has gone mad. Orin sits at Christine's feet and recounts his wonderful dreams about the two of them in the South Sea Islands. The islands represent everything the war was not: peace, warmth, and security, or Christine herself. Lavinia reappears in the room and coldly calls Orin to view their father's body. Act III In the study, Orin tells Lavinia that Christine has already warned him of her madness. Lavinia insists that Orin certainly cannot let their mother's lover escape. She proposes that they watch Christine until she goes to meet Brant as this should convince Orin of her treachery. Orin agrees. Act IV The night after Ezra's funeral, Brant's clipper ship appears at a wharf in East Boston. Christine sneaks out to meet Brant on the deck, and they retire to the cabin. Lavinia and an enraged Orin (who followed their mother from the house) listen from the deck. Brant and Christine decide to flee east and seek out their Blessed Islands. They painfully bid each other farewell. When Brant returns, Orin shoots him and ransacks the room to make it seem that Brant has been robbed. Act V The following night Christine paces the drive before the Mannon house. Orin and Lavinia appear, revealing that they killed Brant. Christine collapses. Orin kneels beside her promising he will make her happy, that they can leave Lavinia at home and go abroad together. Lavinia orders Orin into the house. He obeys. Lavinia tells her mother she can still live. Christine glares at her daughter then enters the house. Lavinia remains outside. A gunshot is heard from Ezra's study. Lavinia stammers: "It is justice!" Act I, scene 1 A year later, Lavinia and Orin return from their trip abroad. Lavinia now resembles her mother, even wearing a green dress like the one her mother was wearing at the start of the play. Orin has grown dreadfully thin and bears the statue-like attitude of his father. Act I, scene 2 In the sitting room, Orin grimly remarks that Lavinia has stolen Christine's soul. Peter enters from the rear and gasps, thinking he has seen Christine's ghost. Lavinia approaches him eagerly. Orin jealously mocks his sister's warmth toward Peter, accusing her of becoming a true romantic during their time in the South Seas. Act II A month later, Orin is working intently at a manuscript in the Mannon study. Lavinia enters and asks what he is doing. Orin says they must atone for their mother's death. As the last male Mannon, he has written a history of the family crimes. He then observes that Lavinia only became pretty like their mother on the islands they visited. Orin angrily accuses her of sleeping with one of the men on that island and Lavinia assumes Christine's taunting voice. Reacting like Ezra, Orin grasps her throat, threatening to kill her. It becomes apparent that Orin has taken Ezra's place as Lavinia has taken Christine's. Act III A moment later, the scene switches to Hazel and Peter in the sitting room. Orin enters, insisting that he see Hazel alone. He gives her a sealed envelope, warning her to keep it away from Lavinia. She should only open it, (a) if something happens to him, or (b) if Lavinia tries to marry Peter. Lavinia enters from the hall. Hazel tries to keep Orin's envelope hidden behind her back, but Lavinia rushes to Orin, beseeching him to let her see it. After Lavinia says she loves him, and agrees to do whatever he wants, Orin gives her the envelope. Orin then tells Hazel to leave. Orin forbids Lavinia from ever seeing Peter again. He tells her he loves her. Lavinia stares at him in horror, saying, "For God's sake—! No! You're insane! You can't mean—!" Lavinia wishes his death. Startled, Orin realizes that his death would be another act of justice. He thinks Christine is speaking through Lavinia. Peter appears in the doorway in the midst of the argument. Orin remarks that he was about to go clean his pistol and exits. Lavinia throws herself into Peter's arms. A muffled shot is heard, as Orin commits suicide in the other room. Act IV Three days later, Lavinia appears dressed in deep mourning. A resolute Hazel arrives and insists that Lavinia not marry Peter. Hazel admits she has told Peter of Orin's envelope. Peter arrives, and he and Lavinia pledge their love anew. Surprised by the bitterness in his voice, Lavinia desperately flings herself into his arms crying, "Take me, Adam!" Then, horrified, she breaks off their engagement and sends Peter away. She realizes she is forever bound to the Mannon dead. As there is no one left to punish her, she must punish herself. She decides to live alone in the old house with the ghosts of her ancestors. She orders Seth to board up the windows and throw out all the flowers – then she enters the dark house alone and shuts the door.
An English-language three-act opera by Marvin David Levy, with libretto by Henry W. Butler after Eugene O’Neill’s play Mourning Becomes Electra. The principal characters include Christine, Lavinia and Orin Mannon, and Captain Adam Brant.
The plot centers on Nina Leeds, the daughter of a classics professor at a college in New England, who is devastated when her adored fiancé is killed in World War I, before they have a chance to consummate their passion. Ignoring the unconditional love of the novelist Charles Marsden, Nina embarks on a series of sordid affairs before determining to marry an amiable fool, Sam Evans. While Nina is pregnant with Sam's child, she learns a horrifying secret known only to Sam's mother: insanity runs in the Evans family and could be inherited by any child of Sam's. Realizing that a child is essential to her own and to Sam's happiness, Nina decides on a "scientific" solution. She will abort Sam's child and conceive a child with the physician Ned Darrell, letting Sam believe that it is his. The plan backfires when Nina and Ned's intimacy leads to their falling passionately in love. Twenty years later, Sam and Nina's son Gordon Evans is approaching manhood, with only Nina and Ned aware of the boy's true parentage. In the final act, Sam dies of a stroke without learning the truth. This leaves Nina free to marry Ned Darrell, but she declines, choosing instead to marry the long-suffering Charlie Marsden, who proclaims that he now has "all the luck at last." The meaning of the title is suggested by the aging Nina in a speech near the end of the play: "Our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father!"
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter who has made himself emperor of a West Indian island, flees a brewing rebellion through the jungle. As he encounters visions of episodes from his past, fear and guilt overtake him, and the rebels kill him with the silver bullet he believed was the only weapon that could harm him.
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter and escaped convict, has made himself a wealthy, brutal ruler of a West Indian island. As a revolt drives him into the jungle, visions of his past and a man he murdered overwhelm him; surrounded by pursuers, Jones kills himself with the silver bullet he had worn as protection.
Business partners’ sons Dion Anthony and Billy Brown both love Margaret, who falls for Dion’s cruel public mask rather than his sensitive artistic self. After Dion’s death, Billy assumes the mask and identity, gradually losing his own self until he too dies; years later Margaret still pledges her love to the mask.
Stoker Yank feels powerful while working below deck on an ocean liner until industrialist's daughter Mildred calls him a beast. He tries to avenge the insult and find a place among the wealthy and labor organizers, but feels alienated everywhere. He ultimately approaches a gorilla at the zoo as a kindred being; it kills him.
A year after their return from abroad, Orin and Lavinia have taken on the traits of their dead parents. Orin writes a record of the family's crimes and tries to control Lavinia, then shoots himself. Lavinia breaks off her engagement to Peter and chooses to live alone in the Mannon house, shutting herself away with the family dead.
After Ezra's death, Orin returns from the war and Lavinia tells him of Christine's affair with Brant. Lavinia and Orin follow Christine to Brant's ship, where Orin shoots Brant. When they tell Christine, she goes into Ezra's study and kills herself.
The Iceman Cometh is set in New York in 1912 in Harry Hope's downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house. The patrons, twelve men and three prostitutes, are dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in one another's company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They drift purposelessly from day to day, coming fully alive only during the semi-annual visits of salesman Theodore "Hickey" Hickman. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to arrive in time for Harry's birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters as they bicker among themselves, showing how drunk and delusional they are, all the while awaiting Hickey. Joe Mott insists that he will soon re-open his gambling casino. The English Cecil "The Captain" Lewis and South African Boer Piet "The General" Wetjoen, who fought each other during the Boer War, are now good friends, and both insist that they'll soon return to their nations of origin. Harry Hope has not left the bar since his wife Bess's death 20 years ago. He promises that he'll walk around the neighborhood on his birthday, which is the next day. Pat McGloin says he hopes to be reinstated into the police force, but is waiting for the right moment. Ed Mosher prides himself on his ability to give incorrect change, but he kept too much of his illegitimate profits to himself and was fired from the circus; he says he will get his job back someday. Hugo Kalmar, a former anarchist, is drunk and passed out for most of the play; when he is conscious, he pesters the other patrons to buy him a drink. Chuck Morello says that he will marry Cora tomorrow. Larry Slade is a former syndicalist-anarchist who looks pityingly on the rest. Don Parritt is the son of a former anarchist who shows up early in the play to talk about his mother (Larry's ex-girlfriend) to Larry; specifically her arrest due to her involvement in the anarchist movement. When Hickey finally arrives, his changed behavior throws the characters into turmoil. With as much charisma as ever, he insists that he sees life clearly now as never before because he no longer drinks. Hickey wants the characters to cast away their delusions and accept that their heavy drinking and inaction mean that their hopes will never be fulfilled. He takes on this task with a near-maniacal fervor. How he goes about his mission, how the other characters respond, and their efforts to find out what has wrought this change in him, take over four hours to resolve. During and after Harry's birthday party, most seem to have been affected by Hickey's ramblings. Larry who says he's done with active participation in life and is content to be a spectator "in the grandstand" pretends to be unaffected, but when Don reveals he was the informant responsible for the arrest of his own mother (Larry's former girlfriend), Larry angrily insists he doesn't want to hear it. Willie the former lawyer proposes that he'll represent McGloin in his appeal to get his old police job back as a way to brush up his own lawyering skills before he tries to get back his old job with the district attorney, and Rocky admits he is a pimp, not a bartender. Most of the men Hickey talked with do go out into the world—dressed up, hopeful of turning their lives around—but they fail to make any progress. Eventually, they return and are jolted by a sudden revelation. Hickey, who had earlier told the other characters first that his wife had died and then that she was shot and then that she was murdered, admits that he is the one who killed her. The police arrive, called by Hickey himself, to arrest Hickey. Hickey tries to explain his murder of the woman he loved so deeply in a long dramatic monologue, saying that he did it out of love for her. He relates that his father was a preacher in the backwoods of Indiana. Evidently he was both charismatic and persuasive, and it was his inheriting these traits which led Hickey to become a salesman. An angry kid trapped in a small town, Hickey had no use for anyone but his sweetheart, Evelyn. Evelyn's family forbade her to associate with Hickey, but she ignored them. After Hickey left to become a salesman, he promised he would marry Evelyn as soon as he was able. He became a successful salesman, then sent for her and the two were very happy until Hickey became increasingly guilty following his wife's constant forgiveness of his infidelities and drinking. He then recounts how he murdered her to free her from the pain of his persistent philandering and drinking because she loved him too much to live apart from him. But, in retelling the murder, he laughs and tells Evelyn, "Well, you know what you can do with that pipe dream now, don't you?" In realizing he said this, Hickey breaks down completely. He says that he must have been insane and that people need their empty dreams to keep existing. The others are now relieved that what Hickey had been telling them all throughout the play, which had made them all face the truth about themselves, was just the ravings of a lunatic, and so they could now safely resume believing their old "pipe dreams" and excuses about themselves and resume drinking and their old lives hanging out in Harry Hope's bar. They reaffirm their solidarity with Hickey and pledge to testify to his insanity at his murder trial, despite Hickey's desire for a death sentence. He no longer wishes to live now that he has no illusions about life. They return to their empty promises and pipe dreams except for Parritt, who runs to his room and jumps off the fire escape, unable to live with the knowledge of what he has done to his mother after discarding the last of his lies about his action and motivation for it. He first claims that he did it due to patriotism and then for money, but finally admits he did it because he hated his mother, who was so obsessed with her own freedom of action that she became self-centered and alternately ignored or dominated him. Despite witnessing the young man's fatal leap, and acknowledging the futility of his own situation, as Larry says at the end, "Be God, there's no hope! I'll never be a success in the grandstand— or anywhere else! Life is too much for me! I'll be a weak fool looking with pity at the two sides of everything till the day I die!"
At a tuberculosis sanatorium, young Eileen Carmody falls in love with writer Stephen Murray while helping him pursue his career. As her illness worsens and his improves, he leaves without returning her love; months later he pretends to love her to give her hope, then realizes his feelings are genuine.
In 1828 Massachusetts, ageing tavern owner Major Cornelius Melody is a braggart and social climber, struggling against the American class system and the loss of his self-image.
Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. It differs from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a happy family in turn-of-the-century America. It is O'Neill's only well-known comedy. The play was successful in its first Broadway production and the touring production that followed. It has since become a staple of community repertory.
Jim Harris, a Black man determined to become a lawyer, marries Ella, a white woman whose insecurity and racism undermine his ambitions. Across fifteen years, their relationship deteriorates under external prejudice and Ella’s control, while Jim repeatedly fails the bar exam and ultimately gives up trying.
Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around. The first act takes place in a bar owned by Johnny the Priest and tended by Larry. Coal-barge captain Old Chris receives a letter from his daughter, a young woman he has not seen since he lived in Sweden with his family and she was five years old. They meet at the bar and she agrees to go to the coal barge with him. The barge crew rescues Mat Burke and four other men who survived a shipwreck in an open boat. Anna and Mat don't get along at first, but quickly fall in love. A confrontation on the barge among Anna, Chris and Mat. Mat wants to marry Anna, Chris does not want her to marry a sailor, and Anna doesn't want either of them to think they can control her. She tells them the truth about her past: She was raped while living with her mother's relatives on a Minnesota farm, worked briefly as a nurse's aide, then became a prostitute. Mat reacts angrily, and he and Chris leave. Mat and Chris return. Anna forgives Chris for not being part of her childhood. After a dramatic confrontation, Anna promises to abandon prostitution and Mat forgives her. Chris agrees to their marriage. Chris and Mat have both signed to work aboard a ship that is leaving for South Africa the next day. They promise to return to Anna after the voyage.
Act I Robert Mayo is sitting on the fence line of his family's farm, contemplating the horizon. He has dreamed of leaving the farm and travelling so he wouldn't live in one place. The next morning, Robert will sail with his maternal uncle, Captain Dick Scott, on the Sunda to visit the foreign places he has only dreamed and read about. Robert's elder brother, Andrew, wants to stay on the farm and keep working on it. Andrew is engaged to Ruth Atkins, a woman Robert has been in love with. On the eve of Robert's departure, he confesses his feelings to Ruth and she reveals that she also loves him and had only agreed to marry Andrew out of the mistaken belief Robert doesn't love her back. Robert decides to stay on the farm and marry Ruth. Upset over losing Ruth to Robert, Andrew hastily chooses to join his uncle. The family patriarch, James Mayo, persuades Andrew to stay. But Andrew still leaves with Captain Scott yet harbors no ill will to Robert. Act II Two years after his oldest son left to travel the world, Mr. Mayo dies. When another year passes, life on the Mayo family's farm has deteriorated due to Robert lacking the farming skills his brother has. Robert's mother, Kate Mayo, says Robert cannot help the deterioration, but his mother-in-law, Mrs. Atkins, retorts that all his hard work has yielded nothing. In the three years, Ruth discovers that all that charmed her about her husband no longer holds the same allure and their daughter, Mary, is as irritable and sickly as he was in his own youth. Ruth insists to Robert that she should have seen his "true self" and killed herself before they had married. This revelation embitters Robert and he continues to let the farm deteriorate. The Mayo family hopes for Andrew's homecoming. Having finished his three-year apprenticeship on the Sunda, Andrew wants to help, but has lost his money on ill-advised land speculation and must travel to Argentina to recoup his losses. He promises to return and restore the farm to its former glory. Ruth pleads with Andrew to stay, but he leaves on the first available ship to South America. Act III Five years pass by, and both Mrs. Mayo and Mary have died. The farm has been ruined and Robert himself is seriously ill from tuberculosis. Andrew returns poor again due to illegitimate trading and he brings a doctor to Robert, but the disease has become terminal. Now a broken man, Robert drags himself to the fence line one last time so he can observe the horizon and imagine the travels he would never experience.
On a New England farm, Eben resents his father Ephraim for his mother’s death. When Ephraim remarries, Eben and his stepmother Abbie become lovers; their struggle over the farm ends in the killing of their child and their joint arrest.
Edward Thomas’s American folk opera adapts Eugene O’Neill’s drama Desire Under the Elms, which in turn draws on Euripides’ Hippolytus.
Setting: The parlor of home on a side street of a seaport village in New England in 1890. Emma is engaged to an older man, a sea captain named Caleb. She discovers that he was briefly unfaithful while at sea and calls off the wedding. In the seaport village, the women tended to accept the promiscuity of the men who work at sea. Emma however, expected her future husband to be of different nature than the sailors in the village. Setting: The same location in 1920. 30 years go by, but the ageing sea captain still hopes that he can marry his former fiancé from 1890, Emma. Caleb's sister Harriet and her husband, Alfred, have raised their son Benny, who has now returned to the seaside from a tour of duty in World War I, where he had been stationed in France. Benny becomes good friends with Emma, who he sometimes calls Aunt Emma. On the stage, the audience sees that Benny is having various financial problems and has hatched a plan. However, the audience does not know what it is. Emma does not know that Benny was actually a grifter and charlatan. Caleb later arrives and notices how her home has changed. Emma explains that in the last two weeks, the "gloomy and old-timey" look of the house started to bother her so changed the style to "light and airy and young-looking". Caleb explains to Emma Benny's real character, his dishonesty and so on. Caleb also points out that he, however, has always been honest with her, especially after expressing regret for the unfortunate act. Emma declares that she is going to marry Benny. Caleb, clearly upset, tells Emma that he would rather pay Benny to cancel the wedding than see Emma suffer with a terrible mistake. Caleb tells Emma that he had always thought she was "diff'rent" than the rest of the people in the village. However, he now finds her the same as everyone else, but just more mentally ill. After Caleb leaves, Benny returns. Benny tells Emma that he will take the bribe from Caleb to not marry her. Benny was using Emma as if she were property that he could negotiate with. Emma is overwhelmed with shock of Benny explaining this to her. Emma later learns of Caleb's suicide, and she begins to exit, intending to join Caleb.
The religious Light family and atheist Fife family are neighbors divided by conflict. Their children Reuben and Ada fall in love; after Reuben leaves and returns changed, he treats the hydroelectric dynamos as a god, brings Ada to them, shoots her and electrocutes himself.
As Ezra Mannon returns from the Civil War, his daughter Lavinia confronts her mother Christine about her affair with Adam Brant. Christine agrees to end the affair but instead poisons Ezra when he threatens her; his dying words expose her guilt to Lavinia.
In a Manhattan hotel lobby in 1928, small-time hustler Erie Smith delivers a long monologue to new night clerk Charlie Hughes, lamenting his bad luck since the death of Hughes's predecessor, Hughie.
The crew of a small tramp steamer face the strains of life at sea during the First World War.
After Lazarus returns from the dead, he proclaims that death does not exist and that life is eternal laughter. Jews, Romans, and Greeks test his faith; despite the loss of his family and his own execution by Tiberius, he maintains his belief.
The play takes place on a single day in August 1912. The setting is Monte Cristo Cottage, the seaside home of the Tyrones in Connecticut. The four main characters are the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill, his older brother, and their parents, including his father, actor James O'Neill. The play portrays a family struggling to grapple with the realities and consequences of each member's failings. The parents and two sons blame and resent each other for various reasons; bitterness and jealousy serve as proxies for ultimately failed attempts at tenderness and compassion. The family's enduring emotional and psychological stress is fueled by their shared self-analysis, combined with articulate honesty. The story deals with addiction, unfulfilled dreams, moral flaws, and the struggle of family relationships.
In 1832 Massachusetts, Simon Harford's mother and wife battle to control him through love. Set against the Industrial Revolution, their struggle leads to tragedy and despair.
Act I It is late spring in front of the Mannon house. The master of the house, Brigadier-General Ezra Mannon, is soon to return from the Civil War. Lavinia, Ezra's daughter, like her mother Christine, has just returned from a trip to New York. Seth, the gardener, takes Lavinia aside. He warns her against her would-be beau, Captain Brant. Before Seth can continue, Lavinia's friend Peter Niles and his sister, Hazel, arrive. If Peter is proposing marriage to Lavinia again, he must realize she cannot marry anyone because her father needs her. Seth asks Lavinia if she has noticed that Brant resembles members of the Mannon family. Seth believes Brant is the child of David Mannon (Ezra's uncle, who later hanged himself) and Marie Brantôme (a French Canadian nurse), a couple expelled from the house due to fear of scandal and public disgrace. Suddenly Brant himself enters from the drive. Calculatingly, Lavinia derides the memory of Brant's mother, who died of starvation as Ezra never replied to a message she sent for help. Brant explodes and reveals his heritage. He tells Lavinia that her own grandfather (Ezra's father) also craved his mother and thus cast David out of the family. Brant has sworn vengeance. Act II Lavinia appears inside her father's study. Christine enters indignantly, wondering why Lavinia has summoned her. Lavinia reveals that she followed her to New York and saw her kissing Adam Brant. Christine defiantly tells Lavinia that she has long hated Ezra and that Lavinia was born of her disgust for him. She loves Lavinia's brother Orin because he always seemed to be hers alone, and never Ezra's. Lavinia says that she will keep her mother's adultery a secret for Ezra's sake but Christine must promise to never see Brant again. Christine accuses her daughter of wanting Brant for herself. Christine then appears to agree to Lavinia's terms but proposes to Brant that they poison Ezra and attribute his death to his heart trouble. Act III One week later, Lavinia stands at the top of the front stairs with Christine waiting for Ezra. When he arrives, Lavinia rushes forward and embraces him. Once Ezra is alone with his wife, he impulsively kisses her hand. The war has made him realize that they must put aside their differences. Christine agrees. They kiss and, for the first time in many years, share a bed. Act IV Toward daybreak in Ezra's bedroom, Christine slips out. Ezra, waking, bitterly rebukes her. He believes Christine awaits his death. Later, she deliberately taunts him that she is Brant's mistress. Ezra rises in fury, threatening to kill her but falls back, clutching his heart and begging for his medicine. Christine gives him poison instead. After taking it, Ezra realizes her treachery and calls out to Lavinia. Lavinia rushes into the room. With his dying breath, Ezra indicts his wife: "She's guilty — not medicine!", he gasps, and then dies. Christine collapses in a faint, and Lavinia falls to her knees in anguish. Act I Peter, Lavinia, and Orin arrive at the house. Orin complains of his mother's absence. He jealously asks Lavinia about Christine and Brant. Lavinia warns him against believing their mother to be innocent of an affair. Suddenly, Christine appears and embraces her son jubilantly. Act II Orin asks his mother about Brant. Christine explains that Lavinia has gone mad. Orin sits at Christine's feet and recounts his wonderful dreams about the two of them in the South Sea Islands. The islands represent everything the war was not: peace, warmth, and security, or Christine herself. Lavinia reappears in the room and coldly calls Orin to view their father's body. Act III In the study, Orin tells Lavinia that Christine has already warned him of her madness. Lavinia insists that Orin certainly cannot let their mother's lover escape. She proposes that they watch Christine until she goes to meet Brant as this should convince Orin of her treachery. Orin agrees. Act IV The night after Ezra's funeral, Brant's clipper ship appears at a wharf in East Boston. Christine sneaks out to meet Brant on the deck, and they retire to the cabin. Lavinia and an enraged Orin (who followed their mother from the house) listen from the deck. Brant and Christine decide to flee east and seek out their Blessed Islands. They painfully bid each other farewell. When Brant returns, Orin shoots him and ransacks the room to make it seem that Brant has been robbed. Act V The following night Christine paces the drive before the Mannon house. Orin and Lavinia appear, revealing that they killed Brant. Christine collapses. Orin kneels beside her promising he will make her happy, that they can leave Lavinia at home and go abroad together. Lavinia orders Orin into the house. He obeys. Lavinia tells her mother she can still live. Christine glares at her daughter then enters the house. Lavinia remains outside. A gunshot is heard from Ezra's study. Lavinia stammers: "It is justice!" Act I, scene 1 A year later, Lavinia and Orin return from their trip abroad. Lavinia now resembles her mother, even wearing a green dress like the one her mother was wearing at the start of the play. Orin has grown dreadfully thin and bears the statue-like attitude of his father. Act I, scene 2 In the sitting room, Orin grimly remarks that Lavinia has stolen Christine's soul. Peter enters from the rear and gasps, thinking he has seen Christine's ghost. Lavinia approaches him eagerly. Orin jealously mocks his sister's warmth toward Peter, accusing her of becoming a true romantic during their time in the South Seas. Act II A month later, Orin is working intently at a manuscript in the Mannon study. Lavinia enters and asks what he is doing. Orin says they must atone for their mother's death. As the last male Mannon, he has written a history of the family crimes. He then observes that Lavinia only became pretty like their mother on the islands they visited. Orin angrily accuses her of sleeping with one of the men on that island and Lavinia assumes Christine's taunting voice. Reacting like Ezra, Orin grasps her throat, threatening to kill her. It becomes apparent that Orin has taken Ezra's place as Lavinia has taken Christine's. Act III A moment later, the scene switches to Hazel and Peter in the sitting room. Orin enters, insisting that he see Hazel alone. He gives her a sealed envelope, warning her to keep it away from Lavinia. She should only open it, (a) if something happens to him, or (b) if Lavinia tries to marry Peter. Lavinia enters from the hall. Hazel tries to keep Orin's envelope hidden behind her back, but Lavinia rushes to Orin, beseeching him to let her see it. After Lavinia says she loves him, and agrees to do whatever he wants, Orin gives her the envelope. Orin then tells Hazel to leave. Orin forbids Lavinia from ever seeing Peter again. He tells her he loves her. Lavinia stares at him in horror, saying, "For God's sake—! No! You're insane! You can't mean—!" Lavinia wishes his death. Startled, Orin realizes that his death would be another act of justice. He thinks Christine is speaking through Lavinia. Peter appears in the doorway in the midst of the argument. Orin remarks that he was about to go clean his pistol and exits. Lavinia throws herself into Peter's arms. A muffled shot is heard, as Orin commits suicide in the other room. Act IV Three days later, Lavinia appears dressed in deep mourning. A resolute Hazel arrives and insists that Lavinia not marry Peter. Hazel admits she has told Peter of Orin's envelope. Peter arrives, and he and Lavinia pledge their love anew. Surprised by the bitterness in his voice, Lavinia desperately flings herself into his arms crying, "Take me, Adam!" Then, horrified, she breaks off their engagement and sends Peter away. She realizes she is forever bound to the Mannon dead. As there is no one left to punish her, she must punish herself. She decides to live alone in the old house with the ghosts of her ancestors. She orders Seth to board up the windows and throw out all the flowers – then she enters the dark house alone and shuts the door.
An English-language three-act opera by Marvin David Levy, with libretto by Henry W. Butler after Eugene O’Neill’s play Mourning Becomes Electra. The principal characters include Christine, Lavinia and Orin Mannon, and Captain Adam Brant.
The plot centers on Nina Leeds, the daughter of a classics professor at a college in New England, who is devastated when her adored fiancé is killed in World War I, before they have a chance to consummate their passion. Ignoring the unconditional love of the novelist Charles Marsden, Nina embarks on a series of sordid affairs before determining to marry an amiable fool, Sam Evans. While Nina is pregnant with Sam's child, she learns a horrifying secret known only to Sam's mother: insanity runs in the Evans family and could be inherited by any child of Sam's. Realizing that a child is essential to her own and to Sam's happiness, Nina decides on a "scientific" solution. She will abort Sam's child and conceive a child with the physician Ned Darrell, letting Sam believe that it is his. The plan backfires when Nina and Ned's intimacy leads to their falling passionately in love. Twenty years later, Sam and Nina's son Gordon Evans is approaching manhood, with only Nina and Ned aware of the boy's true parentage. In the final act, Sam dies of a stroke without learning the truth. This leaves Nina free to marry Ned Darrell, but she declines, choosing instead to marry the long-suffering Charlie Marsden, who proclaims that he now has "all the luck at last." The meaning of the title is suggested by the aging Nina in a speech near the end of the play: "Our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father!"
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter who has made himself emperor of a West Indian island, flees a brewing rebellion through the jungle. As he encounters visions of episodes from his past, fear and guilt overtake him, and the rebels kill him with the silver bullet he believed was the only weapon that could harm him.
Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter and escaped convict, has made himself a wealthy, brutal ruler of a West Indian island. As a revolt drives him into the jungle, visions of his past and a man he murdered overwhelm him; surrounded by pursuers, Jones kills himself with the silver bullet he had worn as protection.
Business partners’ sons Dion Anthony and Billy Brown both love Margaret, who falls for Dion’s cruel public mask rather than his sensitive artistic self. After Dion’s death, Billy assumes the mask and identity, gradually losing his own self until he too dies; years later Margaret still pledges her love to the mask.
Stoker Yank feels powerful while working below deck on an ocean liner until industrialist's daughter Mildred calls him a beast. He tries to avenge the insult and find a place among the wealthy and labor organizers, but feels alienated everywhere. He ultimately approaches a gorilla at the zoo as a kindred being; it kills him.
A year after their return from abroad, Orin and Lavinia have taken on the traits of their dead parents. Orin writes a record of the family's crimes and tries to control Lavinia, then shoots himself. Lavinia breaks off her engagement to Peter and chooses to live alone in the Mannon house, shutting herself away with the family dead.
After Ezra's death, Orin returns from the war and Lavinia tells him of Christine's affair with Brant. Lavinia and Orin follow Christine to Brant's ship, where Orin shoots Brant. When they tell Christine, she goes into Ezra's study and kills herself.
The Iceman Cometh is set in New York in 1912 in Harry Hope's downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house. The patrons, twelve men and three prostitutes, are dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in one another's company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They drift purposelessly from day to day, coming fully alive only during the semi-annual visits of salesman Theodore "Hickey" Hickman. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to arrive in time for Harry's birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters as they bicker among themselves, showing how drunk and delusional they are, all the while awaiting Hickey. Joe Mott insists that he will soon re-open his gambling casino. The English Cecil "The Captain" Lewis and South African Boer Piet "The General" Wetjoen, who fought each other during the Boer War, are now good friends, and both insist that they'll soon return to their nations of origin. Harry Hope has not left the bar since his wife Bess's death 20 years ago. He promises that he'll walk around the neighborhood on his birthday, which is the next day. Pat McGloin says he hopes to be reinstated into the police force, but is waiting for the right moment. Ed Mosher prides himself on his ability to give incorrect change, but he kept too much of his illegitimate profits to himself and was fired from the circus; he says he will get his job back someday. Hugo Kalmar, a former anarchist, is drunk and passed out for most of the play; when he is conscious, he pesters the other patrons to buy him a drink. Chuck Morello says that he will marry Cora tomorrow. Larry Slade is a former syndicalist-anarchist who looks pityingly on the rest. Don Parritt is the son of a former anarchist who shows up early in the play to talk about his mother (Larry's ex-girlfriend) to Larry; specifically her arrest due to her involvement in the anarchist movement. When Hickey finally arrives, his changed behavior throws the characters into turmoil. With as much charisma as ever, he insists that he sees life clearly now as never before because he no longer drinks. Hickey wants the characters to cast away their delusions and accept that their heavy drinking and inaction mean that their hopes will never be fulfilled. He takes on this task with a near-maniacal fervor. How he goes about his mission, how the other characters respond, and their efforts to find out what has wrought this change in him, take over four hours to resolve. During and after Harry's birthday party, most seem to have been affected by Hickey's ramblings. Larry who says he's done with active participation in life and is content to be a spectator "in the grandstand" pretends to be unaffected, but when Don reveals he was the informant responsible for the arrest of his own mother (Larry's former girlfriend), Larry angrily insists he doesn't want to hear it. Willie the former lawyer proposes that he'll represent McGloin in his appeal to get his old police job back as a way to brush up his own lawyering skills before he tries to get back his old job with the district attorney, and Rocky admits he is a pimp, not a bartender. Most of the men Hickey talked with do go out into the world—dressed up, hopeful of turning their lives around—but they fail to make any progress. Eventually, they return and are jolted by a sudden revelation. Hickey, who had earlier told the other characters first that his wife had died and then that she was shot and then that she was murdered, admits that he is the one who killed her. The police arrive, called by Hickey himself, to arrest Hickey. Hickey tries to explain his murder of the woman he loved so deeply in a long dramatic monologue, saying that he did it out of love for her. He relates that his father was a preacher in the backwoods of Indiana. Evidently he was both charismatic and persuasive, and it was his inheriting these traits which led Hickey to become a salesman. An angry kid trapped in a small town, Hickey had no use for anyone but his sweetheart, Evelyn. Evelyn's family forbade her to associate with Hickey, but she ignored them. After Hickey left to become a salesman, he promised he would marry Evelyn as soon as he was able. He became a successful salesman, then sent for her and the two were very happy until Hickey became increasingly guilty following his wife's constant forgiveness of his infidelities and drinking. He then recounts how he murdered her to free her from the pain of his persistent philandering and drinking because she loved him too much to live apart from him. But, in retelling the murder, he laughs and tells Evelyn, "Well, you know what you can do with that pipe dream now, don't you?" In realizing he said this, Hickey breaks down completely. He says that he must have been insane and that people need their empty dreams to keep existing. The others are now relieved that what Hickey had been telling them all throughout the play, which had made them all face the truth about themselves, was just the ravings of a lunatic, and so they could now safely resume believing their old "pipe dreams" and excuses about themselves and resume drinking and their old lives hanging out in Harry Hope's bar. They reaffirm their solidarity with Hickey and pledge to testify to his insanity at his murder trial, despite Hickey's desire for a death sentence. He no longer wishes to live now that he has no illusions about life. They return to their empty promises and pipe dreams except for Parritt, who runs to his room and jumps off the fire escape, unable to live with the knowledge of what he has done to his mother after discarding the last of his lies about his action and motivation for it. He first claims that he did it due to patriotism and then for money, but finally admits he did it because he hated his mother, who was so obsessed with her own freedom of action that she became self-centered and alternately ignored or dominated him. Despite witnessing the young man's fatal leap, and acknowledging the futility of his own situation, as Larry says at the end, "Be God, there's no hope! I'll never be a success in the grandstand— or anywhere else! Life is too much for me! I'll be a weak fool looking with pity at the two sides of everything till the day I die!"
At a tuberculosis sanatorium, young Eileen Carmody falls in love with writer Stephen Murray while helping him pursue his career. As her illness worsens and his improves, he leaves without returning her love; months later he pretends to love her to give her hope, then realizes his feelings are genuine.