Anna Christie: A Play in Four Acts (Forgotten Books) [Paperback]

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2008

Anna Christie is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It tells the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1922.

Act I takes place in the bar, owned by Johnny the Priest and tended by Larry. Old Chris, a coal barge captain, receives a letter from his daughter, a young woman whom he has not seen since she was a baby. They meet at the bar and she agrees to go on the coal barge with him. The rest of the play takes place on the barge.

In Act II, the barge crew rescues Mat Burke and four other men, who were in an open boat after a shipwreck. After not getting along at first, Mat and Anna fall in love.

Act III is a confrontation between Anna, Chris and Mat. Mat wants to marry Anna, Chris does not want them to get married because he doesn't want her to marry a sailor, and Anna is upset with both of them for trying to be in charge of her. Anna tells them the truth about her life, that she was raped while living with her mother's relatives on a Minnesota farm, and then became a prostitute after her time as a nurse's aide. Mat gets very angry, and Mat and Chris both leave.

In Act IV, Mat and Chris return. Anna forgives Chris for not being part of her childhood, and after a dramatic confrontation, Mat forgives Anna for being a prostitute after she promises never to be one again, and Chris agrees to them getting married. It turns out that Chris and Mat have both signed up for the same ship going to South Africa, and they are about to leave the next day, but promise to come home to Anna after the voyage. The play ends there, with a rather unresolved ending. (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This play by Nobel laureate O'Neill centers around Anna, a young woman who, after an illness, decides to spend some time with the father she knows only from occasional letters. While with him, a coal barge captain, she meets Matt, a sailor who's ready to settle down, and the two fall in love. Believing herself unworthy of happiness, Anna reveals secrets from her past that test both her father's and Matt's love. In this expert production, scenes are painted through dialog and the unobtrusive use of sound effects. The actors reveal vivid and distinct characters, and the listener never has to wonder who's speaking. Highly recommended to libraries that serve students and those who love theater.
-Adrienne Furness, Lockport P.L., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review

'A shattering piece of theatre' Guardian'Extraordinary' The Times --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 116 pages
• Publisher: Forgotten Books (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606208616
• ISBN-13: 978-1606208618
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,769,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anna is one of the U.S. theater's most memorable characters, September 9, 2001

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anna Christie (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

"Anna Christie," the play by the great U.S. writer Eugene O'Neill, won the Pulitzer Prize for the 1921-22 theater season. All these decades later, the play still packs an emotional punch. "Anna Christie" focuses on three characters: Anna, who has had a traumatic life in the United States; her father Chris, a Swedish merchant seaman; and Mat Burke, an Irish stoker who takes an interest in Anna. The play takes place in New York City and on Chris's barge.

"Anna Christie" is a compelling study of gender roles and expectations, ethnic conflict in the U.S., family ties and disruptions, the call of the seafaring life, and fatalism versus the embrace of free will. Particularly interesting is O'Neill's representation of various types of vernacular speech. Overall, a classic American play that deserves an ongoing reading audience.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The challenge ..., August 29, 2011

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anna Christie (Paperback)

... in staging Eugene O'Neil's 1920 drama "Anna Christie" is that it's a corny, dated melodrama. On the other hand, it's one of the best corny, dated melodramas in the repertoire. The language is undercooked. The central character Anna -- not Magdalena but close, a ruined woman of virtue -- is no longer plausible to psychologically sophisticated audiences. The drunken Swede, her father, with his vaudeville accent, and the roister-boister Irish sailor, her lover, with his brogue, are by now such overdrawn stereotypes that a modern viewer/reader will need to chuckle indulgently at the naivete of the American theater just ninety years ago. And then -- shades of Hell for a director in 2011! -- the play has a happy ending!

Any temptation to update the drama and pop the corn has to be resisted. "Anna Christie" is a period piece -- far more so than a Shakespeare comedy -- utterly time- and culture-bound. It's a porthole through which to view the mentality of America in its pre-modern rusticity. It needs to be corny because America in 1920 was all corn. It wants to be a melodrama because only melodrama seemed real to Americans then ... and I'm not sure much has changed in the worldview of Americans since. In short, dear director/producer, don't fight it! Play it as it is.

Perhaps that's why the 1930 adaptation of "Anna Christie" as a film was so paradigmatically perfect. It starred two veteran vaudeville exaggerators, George Marion as the sodden sailor father and Marie Dressler as his tramp trollop, along with Greta Garbo in her 'talkie' debut. Not only did Garbo come naturally to her Swedish accent but her human instincts were pure melodrama. The 'Magdalena' role of Anna Christie suited her perfectly because, I think, she "believed" in the archetype. Film-making in 1930, like the stage in 1920, was less than a generation past vaudeville, just emerging from the bombast and bathos of 19th Century theatrics. The script, the dramaturgy, the cinematography, and the acting styles are 'all of a piece.' Once again, dear viewer, don't fight it! Take it as it is!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Swedish communication problems, July 3, 2011

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anna Christie (Paperback)

O'Neill won his second drama Pulitzer with this tale of a prostitute's return to respectability in 1922. Anna Christie is really called Christopherson. The play is a rework of O'Neills older play called Chris Christophersen, where her father was the center piece. The father character is a bit of an involuntary clown because of his strong foreign accent. It was a good idea to shift the focus to the daughter.

Though she is a Swedish sailor's daughter - as in Sweden, Europe - she grew up on a farm in Minnesota. She lived with relatives, but her cousins treated her like a cheap farm hand and as a target for harassment. She ran away, became a nurse, then a working girl. She got jailed and fell ill and now she came to look for her dad, Chris, who is skipper of a coal barge on the East Coast. They have not met for 15 years. She wants to take a rest with him.

Her father wants her to stay out of the life of the sea. Predictably, he fails and she links up with another sailor. She decides to out herself for what she was to father and lover. A crisis evolves, predictably.

The play has not much to offer to keep my reading interest, but it might possibly work very well on the stage. An imaginative production and a strong cast might bring it to life.
The male characters are too predictable and well worn. Only Anna could really convince me. Hers is quite a strong role in her mixture of determination, insecurity, romantic longing, and defiant self-defense.