Brian Dennehy

Audience: Since we’re on the subject of race, I was wondering if Eugene O’Neill was alive today, what do you think his views would be on society? With everything that’s going on, with….

Dennehy: Well, I think, probably like a lot of old men, he would have a hard time with a lot of the changes. But you know, O’Neill was…. It’s a mistake to try to cast O’Neill in any kind of political attitude. Like Beckett, like Chekov, like Strindberg, like Ibsen, like Shakespeare, he was way past that. Now, was he a…progressive? Yeah, I guess so. His attitude was, “There can’t be any rules because there are no rules.” And there certainly can’t be any rules for artists. Now, obviously there are traffic rules, there are rules of behavior, there are rules of theft, and so on and so forth. But beyond that, there cannot be any restrictions as to what we talk and think and explore with each other in terms of art. There cannot be. And he’s right about that.

Now is there a way of turning all that into pornography of one kind or another? Sure. But that’s not what he was talking about. That’s not truth. That’s something else. He was interested, as I said, in Man’s relationship with his soul—which is the objective of all great art. When you’re an actor working on stage, your job is only, to a point, to say to the audience, “Hear this story about these people.” The really important job of an actor on stage, doing a playwright’s work, if it’s the right playwright, is to say to an audience, “Understand this about yourselves. Learn something tonight about who you are. See something up here which reflects in your understanding of your own life.” That is the function of art. If you go to see a piece of art in a museum, if you listen to a concert, if you read a great book, you should come away from it knowing something about yourself that you didn’t know before. That has to be the definition of art. Eugene O’Neill’s objective, Arthur Miller’s objective, Chekov’s objective, Shakespeare… was for you to understand something about yourself that you may not have understood before you put yourself in the position of exploring that piece of work. It may not make you happy. You may not come away from it saying, “Oh, gee, I’m really glad to know that about myself.” Certainly, that would not be the case with O’Neill. But the only question you have to answer is, “Is it true?”

Certainly Beckett—I mean, the profound impact that a good production of Krapp’s Last Tape or even Godot, which I don’t think is as good a play as Krapp’s Last Tape, but is a pretty damn good play… the last line of Waiting for Godot is what? “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” That’s the last line of the play. And that’s what O’Neill is all about. It’s fascinating. Their work intersected. I don’t think…I don’t think there was any…I don’t think O’Neill had ever seen any of Beckett, and Beckett constantly said how much he owed to O’Neill. But again in that…in that desolate world of the soul, Beckett’s and O’Neill’s souls are lonely, barren places. It’s interesting that those two artists—one Irish, one Irish-American—both of whom thought it was funny, although Beckett is funnier and darker—it’s interesting the darker playwright is the funnier one.

Audience: Can I ask a question about you? [Dennehy: About what?] About you. [About me, yeah.] What are you most proud of in your career? In the stage and film and TV…

Dennehy: Oh, you can’t ask me that. [Oh, yes I can.] No, no, I’m going to give you a serious answer. A guy who was a really good friend of mine, was an English writer named Dennis Potter. I don’t want to get into it.