Eugene O'Neill

back from the dead with these four smash hit Broadway plays, starting in 1916 with Justice.

And he opened the door for Eugene O'Neill's debut with Beyond the Horizon in 1920 and really lit the spark that became America's great age of serious drama that arguably is still ongoing because, you know, it was, And all of the, you know, Wolcott and Bruhn and all the critics of that time acknowledge that, that thank goodness somebody's bringing real theater back to Broadway.

And he can certainly be credited with that.

And the other thing is in the late 30s and 1940s, so much for, for saying, oh, poor Jack and his alcoholism and his dying career.

And this isn't a notion unique to the world of musical theater.

When we see major play revivals in the West End, they tend to be star-led these days as well, when we are seeing new productions of Eugene O'Neill plays or Arthur Miller plays, the likes of which we see repeated every few years, another Long Day's Journey into Night, another All My Sons, another Ghosts, Ibsen being another playwright here, another Death of a Salesman.

They tend to be pinned to celebrity names.

Either it's Leslie Manville or it's Jeremy Irons or it's, uh, what's his face from Succession? Any of them from Succession, [laughs] quite honestly.

Today's review is the Long Voyage Home.

The Long Voyage Home, directed by John Ford, is a cinematic adaptation of four one-act plays by Eugene O'Neill.

Released in 1940, this film is a poignant exploration of life aboard the freighter Glencairn during the early days of World War II.

The narrative unfolds with a mix of drama and war elements, capturing the essence of camaraderie, fear and loneliness among the crew members.

It was really a phenomenal magazine.

Big, oversized magazine just packed with art and comics and the work of some of the great figures of the early 20th century, like Max Eastman and John Reed and – Eugene O'Neill and Mary Ellen Voris and all of these really foundational people of the pre-war era.

Yeah.

So just in your little synopsis there, it immediately raises several questions that are really interesting to me.

That's theater.

You know, it's like, well, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, you know, and even old musicals, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, any of that.

You know, you can say you're a theater fan and not know the majority of the history of theater.

It's true in comedy, too, where you can say, well, you know, I saw this with the students I taught, you know, to them, you know, comedy started with Adam Sandler.

So [clears throat] one of the things that people might not be aware of is just how culturally significant New Ross is and how many amazing festivals we have throughout, uh, both the summer and autumn in particular.

Uh, we have Guitar Festival, uh, we'd have the Eugene O'Neill Festival, Piano Festival.

We have the Summer Sessions, where we'd have free outdoor concerts every Saturday evening in the library amphitheater.

Um, so there's a, an amazing range of, of cultural events that go on.

Yeah.

Michael's a great guy, and he had his, uh, wife with him, and, and we showed him around New Ross as well while he was down, and he, and he had a great time, you know.

Um, and then, of course, the other big cultural event that's coming up is the Eugene O'Neill Festival.

Um, that's the Festival of International Theater.

A 17-year-old named Una O'Neill came in to read for the part.

She was the daughter of the playwright Eugene O'Neill, though she had barely known him growing up.

Her parents had divorced when she was a child.

She had left New York for Hollywood, hoping to become an actress.