Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 21, 2000

Volume 28, Number 29

Student-run production explores the
more carefree days of Eugene O'Neill's life

Playwright Eugene O'Neill may be best known for his dark and wrenching dramas, but a Yale-sponsored production this weekend reveals his brighter side.

The "Eugene O'Neill Ragtime Revue" uses songs from the author's works interspersed with narrative to recount the early life of one of America's most celebrated playwrights. The show is a pastiche of spirituals, ragtime, sea shanties and bar songs culled from 37 of O'Neill's 49 plays. The music reflects the more care-free years when O'Neill was sailing around the world and carousing until dawn -- before alcohol and the after-effects of his turbulent childhood took their toll.

The project is a joint venture of two University groups -- Yale Dramat and O'Neill at Yale -- as well as O'Neill buffs from the New Haven community. The show was originally conceived and organized by Stephen Kennedy Murphy, artistic director of the Playwrights Theater in New York, a company that enlists community participation in its productions. Murphy will direct Yale students and New Haven actors in this production.

Patricia Willis, the Elizabeth Wakeman Dwight Curator of the Collection of American Literature collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, which houses the O'Neill papers, has also been a moving force behind the production.

"The 'Ragtime Revue' shows O'Neill's light side -- his love for music, the poems of his youth," says Willis of the collaboration. The show also seeks to bring together members of the Yale and New Haven communities, she adds, as amateur actors from New Haven -- including a prosecutor -- will perform alongside Yale undergraduates.

"It is a grand opportunity for Yale students to work with actors from the New Haven community under Murphy's capable direction," says Willis,

The cast includes Tom Murphy, a New Haven social worker recently seen in "Much Ado about Nothing" at Long Wharf Theatre, who plays O'Neill's brother, Jamie; and Chris Freel, who plays O'Neill. The show will also feature actors from the Playwrights Theater in New York who have already performed the revue to critical acclaim at Lincoln Center and New York University's Provincetown Playhouse.

"The Eugene O'Neill Ragtime Revue" will be staged at Anna Liffey's Irish Restaurant, 17 Whitney Ave., in New Haven Friday-Sunday, April 20-23 at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

For information or reservations, call (203) 436-1355 or email lauren.schell@yale.edu.

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