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EDITOR'S FOREWORD
With this issue the Newsletter concludes its first decade
of publication. Ten years, thirty issues, and more than
1,150 pages! I must admit that I hadn't expected such growth
and longevity when I sent out the 16-page, looseleaf,
pictureless and corner-stapled "preview issue" in January
1977. Nor could I have guessed that the Newsletter, by
providing a vehicle for communication among O'Neill lovers
around the world, would inspire the formation, a few years
later, of a Eugene O'Neill Society. The Newsletter now has
subscribers in 20 countries and 41 of the United States; and
if congratulations are to be distributed on this tenth
anniversary, it is they who deserve it. Their (your)
loyalty, letters, articles, reviews and news items have
permitted it to survive its salad
days without, so far, overstaying its welcome. I wish I
could thank each contributor by name, but the names are too
many. So I have chosen, instead, to include in (or with) the
next issue a cumulative index of this and all previous
issues. That, if I can manage it, will be a service to
scholars as well as a tribute to the many who have made my
first editorial decade such an enlightening adventure.
I mentioned that the Newsletter has subscribers in 41
states, and that reminds me of one goal for its second
decade: to increase that number to 50. Michael Manheim was
surely right to salute O'Neill as "America's national
playwright" (Summer-Fall 1985, pp. 17-23); and there must be
individuals and institutions with an interest in him in
Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska,
Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming. If you know of any, send me
the names and addresses and I will rush them a sample issue.
No new pictures this time: none were received! Which gave
me the chance, on the cover, to reprint the very first photo
that ever appeared in the Newsletter--on page 19 of the
January 1978 issue, in which I reported on the exciting and
moving performance of Marco Millions at the Sharon
Playhouse in Connecticut the previous summer. The picture is
offered, not only as a reminder of the Newsletter's rich
past, but as a pre-centennial assurance that the allegedly
unwieldy and unmanageable works of O'Neill's middle years
are, if imaginatively treated, eminently playable,
economically feasible, and just as capable of wowing an
audience as the late works on which theatre companies
continue to concentrate. Even more capable, in fact, in the
case of Marco, because it requires no stars, abounds
in comedy and satire, and (as the Sharon production proved)
lends itself to a "story theatre" approach that permits
doubling of roles and minimal sets and props.
The present issue concludes the reports of the 1986
Boston conference; features reviews of two important new
books; continues the coverage of the recent Broadway revival
of Long Day's Journey Into Night with Sheila Hickey
Garvey's interview with Peter Gallagher, its Edmund, and
Trudy Drucker's reassessment of the play's text and
characters in the light of that production (that saga will
conclude with a Spring survey of English critics'
reactions); and begins with Ronald Wainscott's detailed
study of Philip Moeller's direction of the Dynamo premiere
in 1929. Professor Wainscott's essay was first presented as
a part of the Competitive Panel in Theatre History during
the August 1985 American Theatre Association convention in
Toronto. The unpublished materials by O'Neill that are
quoted in it are printed with the kind permission of the
Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Yale University [copyright (c) 1986 Yale
University]. The news section is one of the richest yet:
word of an exciting 1988 conference in Belgium, abstracts of
doctoral dissertations, reports and reviews of recent
O'Neill productions and publications, etc.--even a gaffe in
the almost-never-faulty New York Times Crossword! All
that's missing is the traditional "Society Section": there
was nothing new to report in the short time since the last
issue. But the news section ends with details of the
Society's triple-header at the MLA Convention in New York
City on Tuesday, December 30--a triptych that assures us a
substantial Society section in the Spring issue.
Thanks for an exciting decade. With your help, the second
will be even greater! |
