Brian Dennehy

They spent at least one night, maybe two, in this apartment they were staying in, this hotel in Boston, burning manuscripts. He burned probably sixty percent of his previous ten year’s work. Yeah. [responding to moans in the audience.] A great tragedy. He thought he had destroyed Moon for the Misbegotten, he had not, or there was a copy. Long Day’s Journey survived. I think he thought he had destroyed More Stately Mansions; but somehow a typescript…and remember these were typescripts, there weren’t any copy machines in those days. One of the heroes of that whole thing was the publisher—what’s his name?—[Audience: Bennett Cerf.] Bennett Cerf, who had become his friend, and he had sent copies to Bennett Cerf of a lot of stuff, and Cerf saved them—Hughie, for example, only exists because of Bennett Cerf. Now, interesting enough, Bennett Cerf, who was the publisher, tried to stop Carlotta from publishing Long Day’s Journey. He was the guy who said, “No, you can’t do that. That’s not what he wanted.” She, probably for the wrong reasons, to make some money, said, “No, no, the world has to see this.” And she was, of course, right. But there was a lot of stuff that was destroyed.

Audience: Why did they destroy it?

Dennehy: Eugene O’Neill. [Audience: Rob, don’t forget to repeat the questions. Robert Richter: Oh, I was prompted earlier to repeat the questions—“why did they destroy it?” ] “Why did they destroy it?” There’s no answer to that question.

Moderator: He did destroy a lot of things through his career. There’s a question in the back there.

Audience: Yes, I have a question about two plays. But first I’d just like to say that the second act that I saw with Mr. Dennehy and his colleagues on Broadway of Long Day’s Journey I believe to be the greatest segment of a play I’ve ever seen and that ever existed on Broadway. That’s number one. The question about the two plays: Joseph Wood Krutch, the great scholar, many years ago said that he thought that The Iceman Cometh was simply too, this is a generalization, too pessimistic to be considered a tragedy, and I’m curious if you feel that way?