O’Neill the psychologist isn’t much more convincing. But there is no death, nor fear, nor loneliness! There is only God’s eternal laughter!” “Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life! Lonely no more! Millions of laughing stars around me! And laughing dust, born once of woman on this earth, now freed to dance! New stars are born of dust eternally! The old grown mellow with God, burst into flaming seed. The following passage from “Lazarus Laughed,” which had its premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1928, is characteristic of O’Neill the mystic: This was especially true when he dealt with metaphysical issues, which he took as his province in the ‘20s and ‘30s-the death of the Old God, the failure of Science and Materialism, and such. Why the resentment? Because he was also, and often, a terrible playwright. It’s these late plays, as interpreted by Quintero, that force the recognition that O’Neill was indeed a great playwright-damn him. ![]() This was another long journey up the mountain. ![]() In the 1970s, Dewhurst joined them for a revival of “Moon for the Misbegotten,” again concerned with Jamie. In ‘65, Quintero and Robards did a late, unpublished O’Neill one-act called “Hughie”-another success. Being Irish, O’Neill’s family ghosts did go on and on. Again audiences found themselves fascinated. Again Robards was featured, as O’Neill’s alcoholic brother, Jamie. That production led O’Neill’s widow to entrust Quintero with the American premiere of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 1956. With Robards reading Hickey’s monologue about killing his wife out of love for her, you had to listen. It was Quintero’s 1955 revival of “Iceman” that made people listen to O’Neill again. As Mary McCarthy had sniffed in her review of “The Iceman Cometh” (1946), you couldn’t write a tragedy using the language of “Casey at the Bat.” Yet when O’Neill died in 1953, he was looked on as a writer who had outlived his fame. More celebrated than this an American playwright cannot get. O’Neill sweat shirts are on sale at the National Playwrights Conference a few miles from the Monte Cristo Cottage. Visitors can tour the Monte Cristo cottage in New London, Conn., where “Long Day’s Journey” is set, and Tao House in Danville, Calif., where it was written. The centennial will not hurt the growing O’Neill tourist business. Wilkins, Suffolk University, Boston, Mass. There is even a contest to find the best new play about O’Neill, whose last years with his wife, Carlotta, were right out of “Dance of Death.” (Write to Frederick C. And so on, up to and beyond O’Neill’s actual 100th birthday, Oct.
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