4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A poetic account of the playwright's progress as an artist., August 2, 2001
This review is from: Eugene O'Neill: Journey Into Genius [VHS] (VHS Tape)
American theatre, with its earnest portentousness and sombre language, doesn't always travel very well overseas. Eugene O'Neill is a case in point - we prefer the melodramatic hysteria of Tennessee Williams. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the makers of 'Journey into genius' have decided against the straightforward biographical documentary, and produced instead a docudrama, full of historical recreations, symbolic tableaux, monologues, stills montages etc., in an attempt to tell the playwright's story in the stilted, gloomy style of his plays.
This story, structured around the dying of Eugene's famous actor-father, narrates O'Neill's apprenticehsip from being sent down from Princeton to winning his first Pulitzer Prize for 'Beyond the Horizon', taking in alcoholism, TB, Irish colleens, poetry, seafaring, provincial rep and bohemian-left-wing social circles. If you know O'Neill and can spot all the allusions, you might enjoy this. If you're new, be warned: it's not very novice-friendly.
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