Three Plays: Desire Under The Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra (Paperback)

by Eugene O'Neill (Author) "The action of the entire play takes place in, and immediately outside of, the Cabot farmhouse in New England, in the year 1850..." (more)
Key Phrases: thinking strangely, kin feel, joking tone, New York, Ezra Mannon, Act One (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
These three plays exemplify Eugene O'Neil's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts.

From the Inside Flap
These three plays exemplify Eugene O'Neil's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (October 31, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679763961
• ISBN-13: 978-0679763963
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #127,586 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three great and rarely performed plays by Eugene O'Neill, November 17, 1998

By A Customer

One of these three great plays by Eugene O'Neill is Strange Interlude which was written in 1923 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 when it originally ran on Broadway. Its running time is over four hours and it is usually performed with a dinner break. It is a family chronicle, of sorts, following the life of Nina Leeds and her family in a small university town in New England - from her early days as a young woman mourning the loss of her ideal lover during WWI, through her middle age years. It is the story of a family's secret and their determination to keep this secret unknown by others, and sometimes even to themselves. The play's most unusual quality, though, is found in the words that each character speaks. Not only do they converse with each other using naturalistic dialogue, but they also voice their subtext, which is unheard by the other characters in the play, but is heard by the audience. This device brings to the surface the secret life that each character in the play carries with them but is not willing to reveal to others. It creates, in the audience, as if it were another character in the play, a "sharer" of these stage characters' secrets. Through it all we view the lives of these characters with a fondness, and we root for them. Perhaps we root for them because we know, very much, why they are doing the things they do to each other.

The two other plays are well worth the experience of reading and/or seeing on stage. Mourning Becomes Electra, based on the Greek Electra myth, is especially wonderful. Its set in post civil war america and like Strange Interlude its length makes it a rare theatre treat to see performed on stage.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange Interlude, April 15, 1997

By A Customer

I'm new to reading drama, but I have never seen anything quite like "Srange Interlude." In this experimental work, O'Neill actually takes the reader into the thoughts of the characters, by not only thier dialogue or gestures, as in most works, but by letting the characters think their streams of thought aloud. The plot is extremely well developed, though it's tinged with cliche at times. It centers around a mentally unstable woman groping for happiness and the happiness of her four lovers, each lovers in diffferent senses of the word. The first is her high school sweetheart, killed in the war. The second is her lifelong friend. the third is her husband, and the fourth is her doctor. Each have their quirks and instabilities, which make this play a strange interlude, indeed.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Desire Under the Elms, August 19, 2006

By	D. Myft "Trustworthy Reviewer" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Its the only play i read in the book. It was an interesting read. The dialect is sometimes hard to understand, only a few words though.
The play is fast moving and interesting. The scandalous Eben-???(dont want to ruin it for you) relationship is unexpected and dramatic. Perhaps too dramatic, in a rome and juliet complex.