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The 2024 Eugene O’Neill Festival is set to showcase expansive feelings in a more expansive space than ever, with the theme of “Sweeping Passions” inspired by one of the renowned playwright’s most emotionally charged plays, in which his former Danville home is cast as one of the main characters.
“Mourning Becomes Electra”, the centerpiece of the upcoming festival, was one of O’Neill’s most sweeping and ambitious works when it was released in 1931, and could be said — according to festival artistic director Eric Fraisher Hayes — to have paved the way for the Nobel Prize he earned five years later that funded his purchase of what is now known as the Tao House.
The 11-member cast of the upcoming production is beginning rehearsals ahead of the upcoming production, making it one of the largest casts that Hayes has worked with in his ongoing productions of O’Neill’s works.
In addition to the 11 actors playing a total of 25 characters, Hayes’ latest rendition of the play includes an additional character that is not an actor – O’Neill’s former home cast as the Mannon House, which comes to life in the original work.
“I just don’t know how I couldn’t use the house,” Hayes said in an interview last week. “If they said you can’t use the house, I would have said this is not a play that should just be set in the barn.”
The production will use the Old Barn at the Tao House for much of the production, but it will also include portions set outside the Tao House itself – or the Mannon House that it is cast in for the upcoming production, a major character in the play that is introduced in detail by O’Neill in its early pages.
Hayes said that he was inspired to select the play after a project from last year’s festival, in which the Eugene O’Neill Foundation produced short films aimed at highlighting the women in O’Neill’s works. Three of the films were released, but a fourth – an excerpt from “Mourning Becomes Electra” featuring the mother and daughter of the family showcased in the play – was rehearsed but never released.
“It’s a big play,” Hayes said. “As an actor, theater director, you read it and go ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ It’s crazy big and over the top.”
Although family strife is a common theme in much of O’Neill’s work, Hayes said he was seeking to emphasize that the drama in the upcoming production goes beyond the scope of what is typical for O’Neill.
“This play is bigger – it spills over,” Hayes said. “So that’s why I kind of pushed (festival organizers and board members) in the direction of ‘Sweeping Passions’. These people have big feelings and they go there. And that’s actually I think one of the reasons why it doesn’t get produced very often.”
While it’s set in the post-Civil War era, “Mourning Becomes Electra” is heavily inspired by the ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles, effectively a retelling of the story in a different day and age, and including the chorus that was a major feature of ancient Greek theater.
“All these characters have these story arcs where they kind of have some issue – they do some bad things and then finally have their comeuppance,” Hayes said. “They’re kind of at that moment where things come to a head. I would say you some have these shorter arcs and the one character that I’m thinking of, she’s the one who has this huge arc, because it takes all the way to the very end for her to have her moment where she’s like, ‘I’ve got to do something different than what I’ve been doing.'”
In addition to the ancient Greeks, Hayes said O’Neill seemed to be heavily influenced by modern psychology of his day and the introduction of Freudian psychoanalysis and theories.
“It’s interesting because I think part of what O’Neill is trying to do is he is trying to put Greek tragedy – and in a sense that that series of plays – in an American context and in a 20th century context,” Hayes said. “Even though the play is set post Civil War, he’s obviously trying to use psychology from the time in 1931 when he wrote it.”
“So you have the ones who get revenge and then have to live with the consequence, but as opposed to the Greek time where it was these spirits and supernatural forces, in a modern sense it’s guilt, and it’s your psyche and it’s what you’re carrying with you,” he continued.
Another shift from ancient Greek tragedies that Hayes pointed to – and which he is seeking to highlight as a theme of the play – is the desire expressed by the characters, set in New England, to “the islands” and the other desires this symbolizes.
“It’s easy to see the islands represent sort of the opposite of a puritan rigidity – you’re just like oh, we can do things we don’t have to do, or we can escape what we’ve done here. Start new, no responsibilities, nothing,” Hayes said. “They all have this fantasy, and I’m very interested in the production, not only the continuity of the house, but almost everyone has a story about how they fantasize about this other place.”
The ancient Greek, Victorian and early 20th century eras – as well as a tropical motif inspired by the characters’ island fantasies – are all set to be intertwined not just in the play, but throughout the festival’s other events starting this month and running through September, along with other celebrations honoring O’Neill’s birthday on Oct. 16.
The first event of the festival is a “Poetry in Place” workshop this Sunday (Aug. 18) at 2 p.m. set at the Tao House, led by artist in residence Jodie Hollander and aimed at providing participants inspiration from O’Neill’s former home and the surrounding site for poetry about the importance of place – a central theme in “Mourning Becomes Electra”.
On Aug. 20, the regularly scheduled Eugene O’Neill Happy Hour at Danville’s Auburn Lounge is set to host theater professor William Davies King – dramaturg for this year’s EONF production – in a discussion on the role of O’Neill’s wife Carlotta as the playwright’s “guiding star”.
The important women in O’Neill’s life are also set to be the center of a subsequent virtual discussion on Aug. 28 from 6-7 p.m. by mother and daughter team and local theater experts Carole Wynstra and Beth Wynstra highlighting the mother and daughter in “Mourning Becomes Electra” and the relationship between the two characters.
Next month’s events are set to kick off with the opening of a “Sweeping Passions” photography showcase from Sept. 1 through Oct. 16 at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, featuring the work of local photographers and their interpretations of the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site.
Days later, a self-guided “Ghosts of Tao House Stroll” throughout more than a dozen host sites in downtown Danville is set to run from Sept. 6 through Oct. 16.
Festivities are set to continue ahead of the play’s opening weekend with a performance from The Nomads – a band from Danville’s sister city New Ross, Ireland – taking the stage at the Village Theatre on Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m. in celebration of the sister city relationship between their hometown and Danville.
The main event – “Mourning Becomes Electra” – debuts for a three-weekend run from Sept. 14 through Sept. 29.
While the play’s opening weekend is sold out, those without tickets secured can still get their dose of O’Neill-related festivities on Sept. 14 in the form of a historic walk featuring “Secrets of O’Neill’s Danville,” at 10 a.m., kicking off from the Eugene O’Neill Commemorative Park across from the town’s library and community center at 400 Front St.
For those preferring a walk later in the day – and with an interest in libations and the supernatural – a “Whiskey Walk” including ghost stories is scheduled to kick off from the Auburn Lounge on Sept. 25 at 6 p.m., with participants receiving a signature shot glass and a guided tour through downtown for beverage tastings and spooky tales.
While the festival will wind down with the final day of the play on Sept. 29, the late O’Neill is set to be honored again weeks later with a birthday celebration on Oct. 16 with attendees setting out from the Museum of the San Ramon Valley at 10 a.m. for a tour of the Tao House and a toast to the playwright.
More information and registration for all events is available at eugeneoneill.org.
