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Eugene O'Neill and Poetic Realism: Tragic Form in the Belgian Premiere of Long Day's Journey into Night
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
As the critics Horst Frenz and Susan Tuck have made abundantly clear, O'Neill's theatrical reputation on the European continent has often fared well. Witness thereof are the splendid productions that the dramatist's later dramas received at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Although the major foreign productions of O'Neill have by now been documented, those of smaller European countries such as Belgium have remained rather obscure. And yet, I would argue that the Belgian premiere of Long Day's Journey into Night possesses a significant historical importance. It took place, in a French adaptation, in the provincial town of Charleroi in March 1970 as a venture of the “Théâtre de l'Ancre.’ This production, if not flawless, emphasized O'Neill's mastery of poetic stage realism, and thus offered new insights into the meaning of his tragic experiments.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1988
References
NOTES
1 See Frenz, Horst and Tuck, Susan, eds. Eugene O'Neill's Critics: Voices from Abroad (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), pp. XIII–XX.Google Scholar
2 This list was provided by the archives of the “Théâtre de l'Ancre.”
3 26 March 1970. These newspaper clippings were made available to me by the archives of the “Théâtre de l'Ancre.”
4 20 March 1970.
5 20 March 1970.
6 27 March 1970. While La Libre Belgique and Le Peuple are newspapers distributed nationally, the Journal et Indépendance and La Nouvelle Gazette have only a regional audience, that of greater Charleroi.
7 These interviews took place respectively on 9 and 5 December 1986.
8 On Tuesday, December 9, 1986, at the Charleroi “Théâtre de l'Ancre.” Furniere then confessed that he had not been completely satisfied with the quality of acting in the production. This criticism was not, however, aimed at Yvonne Garden's performance.
9 This recording was supervised by Yvonne Garden herself, through whom I was able to obtain a copy of the tape.
10 O'Neill, Eugene, Long Voyage vers la Nuit, trans, by Autrusseau, Jacqueline and Goldring, Maurice (Paris: L'Arche, 1963).Google Scholar
11 This information is derived from Yvonne Garden's recollections, as recorded by me during our December 5, 1986, interview.
12 Black, Stephen A., “O'Neill's Dramatic Process.” American Literature, 59, i(March 1987), pp. 58–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 I shall in future quote from the same edition: O'Neill, Eugene, Long Day's Journey into Night. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982).Google Scholar
14 This information was provided by Jacques Furniere and by the archives of the “Théâtre de l'Ancre.”
15 I was able to determine the extent of those cuts by examining Yvonne Garden's promptbook (on December 5, 1986).