Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra" is astounding. The plot is timeless, the characters are amazingly drawn, and the dialogue is as brilliant as anything he ever wrote. The only problem with the play is that, like everything he wrote, his themes are exhausting because they're so heavy. This play is no exception.

I bought this book for school reading (Is it just me or do books seem to cost so much more now?) and it was used, but inside was free of any highlighting or annotating. Cheap price for a book that you're only going to read once.

Only needed one play, but am delighted to have all three.
The book arrived in very good condition and - as usual - in a most timely manner.
THANKS!

Eugene O'Neil is the man. These plays are pretty dramatic. I would recommend reading just as my teacher in 8th did to me.

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.

Each of the three plays in this volume are beautiful in their own way, with a poignant message that you'll be the better for hearing. O'Neill's genius is breathtaking and sometimes I wonder how he does it. Out of all his plays, there's not a stinker in the bunch.

Oneill, death death death, this is rereleased in vintage 1958,
mourning becomes electra , strange interlude, required reading
for all playwrights of our era.

i need a thesis for a paper on strange interlud