Brian Dennehy

Moderator: Well, I sometimes wonder with that production because O’Neill was reacting to vaudeville and creating new opportunity for… for African-American actors, and not that that was even his intention, but…with the Wooster Group’s production of Emperor Jones, would he actually like the white woman in black face, because…?

Dennehy: No, he probably wouldn’t. But the fact is—it’s interesting about O’Neill, because O’Neill, with Emperor Jones, went through conventional racism. He was not writing a play about a black man who was being destroyed by, you know, the powers that be, which would have been somewhat…somewhat surprising in the ‘20s but not, certainly not a startling conclusion. What he wrote is a play about a black man who had taken over control in a place like Haiti, for example, and was taking advantage of his own people. Now, for someone to write that play in, I guess it was the ‘20s, right, about, about exploitation, knowing no color barrier—a black man who was exploiting his own racial compatriots—that was kind of interesting. But that was true of O’Neill. O’Neill, you know, what interested O’Neill was the perversity to which all human beings, or which all human beings are capable of, regardless of color or gender… A lot women complain that he never wrote, he didn’t write that many great parts for women. Mary Tyrone is one of the greatest parts ever written. And not completely a villain. She has her own rationale. Mary Tyrone—Ella O’Neill—brilliant, beautiful, destroyed. Because her ambitions could never, in that society, be realized. Well, that’s a modern feminist attitude, written by Eugene O’Neill, who the feminists take to task a lot. But if you look at that play, I mean, she’s an incredibly sympathetic character if she’s done right. She’s obviously selfish, and obviously a stoned junkie, but she explains herself very clearly in the play, as Ella must have done to young Gene. There is a tendency to take O’Neill and, like we do with everybody, put him in a jar, label the jar, and stick it up on the shelf. It’s not easy to do that with him, when you work on him. You can do it if you don’t really know him, if you don’t really work on him. Well, I’ve worked on him. It’s hard to do.

If anybody here is interested in doing more work—I mean, the Gelbs have actually written… they’ve written the bible. In fact, I think, finally they’re going to release the third volume here. You know, they’ve been working on this for 50 years. So, I would say if you want to know about Eugene O’Neill’s life, you’ve got to read the Gelbs, no question about that. However, there is a writer named Stephen Black who has written an…spent 20 years writing, 25 years writing…a psychological biography of Eugene O’Neill. For someone who wants to understand the plays, and where they come from in the context of his life, there’s that book. Absolutely critical reading. I’ve done enormous work on O’Neill, and Black was very helpful to me, so… he’s alive. He should be brought around here. He’s an amazing guy, although he lives on the West Coast. [Richter: He comes occasionally for this…] Fantastic guy.

Moderator: We have time for one last question. Actually, let’s get a question from over here, from one we haven’t seen before.

Audience: This is more of a comment than a question, but it can always be responded to. On the subject of what O’Neill’s reaction would be to, say, the Wooster Group, you know, and their…. If I’m not mistaken, I think O’Neill closed down a production that was going to have a black cast do a play of his, it was in the ‘40s. I think he nixed that idea, and he said, “I have written some black characters, let them, let black actors do those parts.” And it reminds me, similarly, Beckett closed down a production of Endgame that Brustein [Dennehy: All women] was going to do at ART, so I was wondering how much control do you think the playwright should have over an actor, say?