Customer Reviews

Hughie

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One of the comments on the back cover says it pretty aptly: "A compassionate, shattering character study, more short story than play." This is basically a 30-page monologue by one of the characters, with an occasional interjection by the other. It centers around the feelings of Erie (the main character) for the previous night clerk at the hotel where he lives (Hughie), who has died. I found it hard to really like Erie, and I was disappointed with the sudden transformation of the new Night Clerk at the end. However, it has to be said that this play would be great for choosing a monologue for acting class or an audition.

A unique format for a one-act play, Eugene O'Neill's Hughie reads more like a short story than a play because of the very lengthy monologues. There are two characters, Erie, a 40ish year old man, small town gambler, lonely soul, boaster, and a run down hotel clerk who merely listens without listening.

The setting is New York, between 3-4 a.m. in midtown New York, a deteriorating hotel built by 1910. The night clerk is new to the job, and focuses on the sounds of the streeets, the city. He encounters Erie Smith, a small town gambler and known to the night clerk as 492. Erie Smith comes back the the hotel and spends the evening discussing Hughie, the previous night clerk who died recently.

We learn all about Hughie through Erie. Hughie was a family man, with children, he was trusting, and led a simple life. Erie was a bragger, an illusionist, low down gambler who has it one day and gone the next. Erie's life is a stark comparison to Hughie's. Erie's keeps letting the night clerk know what a sucker Hughie was, believe anything, a sap, poor.

The reader learns how Hughie's character was important to Erie's ego, confidence. The story hooks the reader in from beginning to end. This was not one of the most popular plays, but very impressive in its format.

Eugene O'Neill died in 1953 and was an honored man with three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and the Nobel Prize for Literature. This lengthy play, written in late 40s was performed in mid 60s. Jason Robards performed the role as Erie Smith in 1964.

Take the time to read Hughie, told by Erie and you will recognize a lot of "Eries" in our lifetime..... Rizzo

If you've ever been stuck in a room, late at night, with a rambling, self-absorbed, semi-inebriated know-it-all, then you'll recognize Erie, the character who dominates O'Neill's last one-act play. Erie Smith is the "type of small fry gambler and horse player" who imagines he is one of the "cynical oracles of the One True Grapevine." His demeanor alternates between pathos and superciliousness; he can be either endearing or annoying depending on the mood and the listener--but either version is hard to take in large doses.

After a night out on the town, Erie finds an unwilling listener in the hotel's night clerk, Charles Hughes, who has replaced the recently deceased Hughie (who, the audience imagines, probably dreaded Erie's late-night arrivals as well). What follows is an extended monologue of Erie's down-and-out life and of his reminiscences of Hughie. The poor clerk is less a character on this stage than a member of the audience, who absent-mindedly nods his head or grunts in agreement, often without even listening to what Ernie is saying.

The play was never performed during O'Neill's lifetime; its Broadway premiere (starring, of course, Jason Robards Jr.) was not staged until 1964--a decade after O'Neill's death. It's not as bad as some of the one-acts he wrote as an apprentice, nor will it ever be considered one of O'Neill's great works: "Hughie" places the same demand on the audience that its protagonist does on the clerk ("Sorry if I'm keeping you up, Sport"). In spite of the play's brevity, the source of its genius is also its basic shortcoming: O'Neill paints a totally convincing, familiar, and sympathetic portrait of a man who is, at heart, an unmemorable bore.

My class had to read Hughie as an assignment. I have read Beyond the Horizon and have fallen in love with the complete intimacy in which O'neill writes his plays. He used personal experience and showed us a new way to think. This is an incredible play to read and even better on stage.