Lazarus Laughed

by Eugene O'Neill

Lazarus Laughed, sub-titled "A Play for Imaginative Theatre," is O'Neill's imaginative speculation as to the remained of Lazarus' life after he was raised from the dead.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Classics, Nobel Prize, 20th Century, Fiction, Drama

106 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

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

[Annie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shhhhhwaht. I'm a big O'Neill fan after reading A Long Day's Journey Into Night, which IMO is the greatest play ever written and still makes me shake a little when I think about it. But this was a bore. I get the point, but this should have been a one act. The point was beaten long after it was dead, there.

And the word laugh. It appeared in this 100-page play no less than FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY TIMES. I'm never laughing again.

[Illiterate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lazarus escapes death & self to live a life of laughing acceptance. But as that life is inhuman, he must die & we return to fearful madness.

[fhale · Rating 4 out of 5]

this under-appreciated play from O'Neill, (can be read -and I guess, only- from here http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400... ) tells us the story of Lazarus, the man came back from the death.

***spoiler***
Lazarus constantly laughs on the questions, barely gives an answer as he says:
/laughingly/ Out with you! Out into the woods! Upon the hills! Cities are prisons wherein man locks himself from life. Out with you under the sky! Are the stars too pure for your sick passions? Is the warm earth smelling of night too desirous of love for your pale introspective lusts? Out! Let laughter be your new clean lust and sanity! So far man has only learned to snicker meanly at his neighbor! Let a laughing away of self be your new right to live forever! Cry in your pride, "I am Laughter, which is Life, which is the Child of God!"

And as his followers yell:
Laugh! Laugh!
Fear is no more!
There is no death!
There is only life!
There is only laughter!
***spoiler***

So this is basically the main point, but the writer also examines the exact death situations, counter arguments like life only exists with death, and to it, sees death as life itself. It gives a fresh feeling of life while living it, on the strength of a man's words that has seen the deaths beyond; I said /laughingly/

[Majid Drm]

یوجیل اونیل با نمایشنامه همه فرزندان خداوند بال دارند روایتی دردناک از نژادپرستی و رنگین پوستی دارد که در دو شخصیت به نام جیم هریسون و الا تعریف میشود همراه با ادویه ای به نام عشق و جملات رمانتیک و دیوانه وار و ترسناک ،اونیل از جیم شخصیتی با خصوصیت اخلاقی فداکار و وفادار و عاشق نشان میدهد با رنگی سیاه و از الا دختری معشوق و مهربان نشان میدهد با رنگی سفید اما متغیر ناشی از رفتارهای متفاوت خواننده با متنی مواجه میشود که نژاد پرستی را کاملا حس میکند حتی در یک رابطه عاشقانه و از سوی معشوقه ایی به نام الا و روایتی از ترس بیان میکند که در آن ترس موجب زیر پا گذاشتن عقاید هم خواهد شد وقتی الا از ترس از دست دادن جیم به جان صورتک می افتد و جملاتی نژاد پرستانه را فریاد میزند این واقعیت را آشکار میکند که نژاد پرستی علف هرزی است که هرجا و هر مکان و در دل هر رابطه ایی سبز میشود حتی گاهی در معشوقه ات آن را خواهی یافت گاهی آشکار و گاهی پنهان و خطرناکتر از نوع آشکار و باید از آن ترسید و متنفر بود

[Nderitu Pius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect!!!
What do you scare a man with after he has seen death and been raised from it by CHRIST?

[Atticus Fehr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really don’t think I like Eugene Oneill’s work

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lazarus Laughed is an incredibly ambitious play, both in terms of subject matter and execution (which is why it is rarely performed). Besides the main characters, there are well over a hundred roles (between various crowds and choruses). Additionally, each character (except Lazarus) wears a mask that reflects his/her age and broader character archetype (i.e. the happy, eager youth, the servile, hypocritical middle aged, etc.). The plot follows Lazarus of Bethany in the months after his miraculous revival. His freedom from death moves him to ecstatic laughter, and he encourages those that flock to him in curiosity and skepticism to shed their earthly fears and embrace the joy of eternal life.

In his imaginative portrayal, O’Neill injects elements of Eastern metaphysics into a familiar biblical story. In proclaiming, “Death is dead”, Lazarus remarks, “once as squirming specks we crept from the tides of the sea. Now we return to the sea! Once as quivering flecks of rhythm we beat down from the sun. Now we reenter the sun!” Nearly identical parallels exist in the Vedas, in which forms of manifestation are likened to drops of water from the greater unmanifested ocean or rays of light from the self-illumined sun. In describing the all-pervasive nature of God, Lazarus proclaims, "there is Eternal Life in No, and there is the same Eternal Life in Yes! Death is the fear between!" In this case, death is the fear that accompanies manifestation; Eternal Life is freedom from manifestation and a return to the supreme unmanifested state.

Of course, any literary venture into the realms of metaphysics, philosophy and/or theology is open to multiple interpretations, and someone with a more finely tuned Western Christian outlook will no doubt find things that escaped me. What I took from the play was an attempt to retell the timeless story of Man’s desire to transcend his earthly fears and desires and reenter into unity with the Absolute—an exceedingly difficult undertaking for a performance piece. As a written work, it also echoes the same Orientalism that dogged other writers of the Twenties who attempted to recast familiar Christian themes in distinctly Eastern terms. Those shortcomings aside, O’Neill’s eloquent prose and expressive imagination made it overall a worthwhile read.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very strange play - must be immensely expensive to mount. Highly philosophical, and consequently light on plot.