Theater Review: A Touch of the Poet

American capacity for tremendous achievement or tremendous despair were subjects that intrigued playwright Eugene O’Neill, whose own life encompassed both extremes. By elevating the 20th century out of vaudeville and melodrama, he earned unprecedented respect: three Pulitzer Prizes (a feat not equaled until Edward Albee’s third in 1994) and a Nobel Prize (still unequaled).

On the other hand, he was the son of an alcoholic stage star, trapped in a  profitable albeit one-role career, and a mother who vanished into a drug haze while he was still young. His brother died after being admitted to a sanatorium with delirium tremens and of his three marriages, the final one to Carlotta Monterey was the least miserable, lasting through estrangement, her addiction, and his final debilitating disease.

His three children continued the cycle. Eugene Jr. killed himself in 1950 and James was disowned after being imprisoned for heroin possession. Oona, probably the only survivor, was disowned at 19 for marrying Charlie Chaplin when he was 54 (the same age as O’Neill).

This backstory is to illuminate the life that O’Neill simultaneously sought to comprehend, distance himself from and vindicate in his work. And how virtually impossible that task was.  A Touch of the Poet, now in repertory at A Noise Within (in Glendale, California) through December 3, was intended to solve all these riddles. O’Neill started a massive play cycle, originally called Calms of Capricorn with Poet, set in 1828, as the first of nine plays. But O’Neill inserted two earlier plays to afford a broader portrait of America from the mid-1700s to the 1930s - coincidentally spanning the nation’s birth to its depression.  Renamed A Touch of the Poet Series, it was finally named A Tale of Possessors Self-Disposed. It was to follow one family, the Harfords.

All this was nearly moot. O’Neill instructed Carlotta to burn the entire project - outlines, notes, drafts, and plays. A Touch of the Poet, which had been finished in 1939, then tinkered with until 1942, and an unfinished fourth play, More Stately Mansions, are all that survived.  It did not premiere until 1958, five years after his death.

Article Author: Cristofer Gross

Cristofer Gross is a freelance writer on theater and jazz.

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