More Stately Mansions

by Eugene O'Neill, Martha Bower (Editor)

Arguing that the 1964 edition of More Stately Mansions prepared after the playwright's death, was missing a substantial amount of material that O'Neill intended for inclusion, Martha Bower presents an entirely new edition of the play with this material.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Theatre

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

American playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill authored Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 among his works; he won the Nobel Prize of 1936 for literature, and people awarded him his fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night , produced in 1956.

He won his Nobel Prize "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism that Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg pioneered to Americans and first used true American vernacular in his speeches.

His plays involve characters, who, engaging in depraved behavior, inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness! , his only comedy: all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

Reviews

[Moriah Russo · Rating 4 out of 5]

survived the never-ending acts 3 & 4

[Jim Leckband · Rating 1 out of 5]

If ever there was a play in need of editing, it is this one. The three main actors (a son/husband, wife, and mother) are *so* overdetermined by pages of dialogue and monologues that the actor has to feel why they are up on stage - they have nothing left to show the audience. That being said, O'Neill is a master of dialogue even in the shape this play is in.

Another thing that jumps out at the reader is that O'Neill is dealing with split personalities at war within the same person. Like a kid watching his parents fight viciously and then make up in a split second. This happens over and over and over again in this play. You'd read a half-page of two characters fighting each other with unreserved hate and then the next page they are making up - until it happens again very soon. Just a mess...

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 2 out of 5]

#2005-06: With O’Neill

20o6 it was. And I had begun this tome rather indiscriminately. I did not know that this tome was a sequel. The problem with ‘connected’ suquels is that you do not get the hang of it if you have not been introduced to the primary text. This tome is a sequel to ‘A Touch of Poets’. The action takes over from the point the earlier play had concluded. It is a pitiless drama based on the dual themes of greed and power. The overall title of ‘A Tale of the Possessors Self-dispossessed’ is more fittingly applicable to the play’s theme. I found it tad elongated and drab in 2005. Need to give it a second read, maybe sometime in the coming months.

[Mickaugrec]

Funny to call it a 'book' since it's really a stageplay ... a stageplay for which you'd want a big cushioned seat, maybe even a laz-e-boy recliner or sofa, to watch it from if it were ever actually produced. Sequel to 'Touch of the Poet,' familiar O'Neillovesque themes and pathos, the period (USA 1820s - 30s) details interesting and used deftly (sparingly), O'N couldn't write a 'costumer' even if forced at gunpoint. Stay tuned...

[Tommy]

softcover

[Max Ostrovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wife and Mother do not mix.

[Aiden Xiang · Rating 4 out of 5]

would love it better if it's not that dreadfully long