Editor's Foreword

Performance Reviews

One hundred years after that most important year in Eugene O'Neill's life, his plays are enjoying compelling and innovative productions, nationally and internationally. O'Neill's late plays, two of which center on events from 1912, have been well represented lately, including the Goodman Theater's much-anticipated revival of The Iceman Cometh with Nathan Lane as Hickey. But other late plays have been revisited, with no fewer than four productions of Long Day's Journey Into Night, including productions in Toronto and London's West End, with David Suchet as James Tyrone; no fewer than three productions of A Moon for the Misbegotten, one of which is reviewed in this issue; as well as productions of A Touch of the Poet and Hughie.

Many of O'Neill's earlier works have enjoyed revivals during this same period, including Desire Under the Elms, which was given an engaging production in Pasadena; two productions of Beyond the Horizon (one reviewed here), "Anna Christie" in San Diego. Marco Millions and Mourning Becomes Electra are being mounted in China. Some companies have experimented with the Glencairn Plays, finding surprising dramatic possibilities therein: Early Plays in New York City (reviewed here) and The Sea Plays in London, which were staged in the Old Vic tunnels to some acclaim. There has even been talk of a production of Lazarus Laughed as a miracle play at Christ Our Hope, in Seattle, though the production was postponed.

And the publication of Exorcism, the lost play set in 1912, has already generated excitement about staging this controversial early play, a glimpse into the dire moment when Eugene O'Neill the playwright almost didn't happen. It's a play O'Neill hoped would never be seen again. At least two companies, the Marvell Repertory Theatre in New York City and the South Camden Theatre Company in New Jersey, have announced productions for the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013 respectively.

The enthusiasm surrounding productions of O'Neill's plays demonstrates that his body of work continues to challenge, move, and even surprise audiences with his representation of some of the defining questions of human experience, questions that may resonate for another hundred years.