What do you think?
Rate this book
Bound East for Cardiff
THIS 22 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE The Great God Brown, The Fountain and The Moon of the Caribbees and Other Plays, by Eugene O'Neill. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417903759.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1916
About the author
Eugene O'Neill
555 books1,293 followersAmerican 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 11, 2025
Bound East for Cardiff by Eugene O’Neill
Three adapted plays
What I listened to this morning is an interesting combination of three plays:
- Bound East for Cardiff
- Moon over the Caribees
- The Long Voyage Home
All three have been adapted for National Radio and turned into one single production.
The performance was rendered in an exceptional way, especially due to the role played by George Constantin, an actor that keeps showing up in my reviews and, more importantly in the plays produced for our radio.
This time I had the chance to hear him against two other giants of our stage: Victor Rebengiuc and Stefan Iordache. For the latter I am not so convinced, but he has been universally acclaimed and who am I to judge?
Furthermore, Maia Morgerstern plays the wife of the captain, and she has won fame for her role in Mel Gibson’s production The Passion of Christ. I do not like madame Morgerstern, at least not for her work in the past twenty years...Twenty five years ago, I think I rather enjoyed her acting, but that was ages ago.
The drama takes place on the high seas...where else?
Like in better known Mutiny on the Bounty, the crew is unhappy and ready to rebel.
The captain, played by George Constantin is firm and holds his ground:
- I am the best captain, I will not ruin my reputation and go back empty handed.
The problem is thay have almost no whale oil, for in those days people were barbarians enough to kill the giant beast of the seas.
What am I saying? Norway and Japan, civilized (??) countries refuse to be part of the treaty that prevents the slaughter of whales on false and cruel pretenses.
The crw is determined to go back, for they have reached the agreed limit.
But the captain will have none of that nonsense.
He wants to have a bounty to get back to shore.
But things are complicated by the presence of his wife.
- I want to get back
- But you insisted that I should take you on board
- I can’t stand it anymore, there is nothing to see but the walls in the cabin
- I had prevented you and told you that life on the ship is extremely hard
- I can’t bear it anymore
Then a sailor comes and brings the good news. There is a pray to be hunted.
- Bring all the men, take both shifts
- If they want to ok, if they don’t make them!
But the wife starts shouting. She has a fit and goes crazy.
There are other aspects that are presented in these plays, rounded up together in one production, like the presence of women on shore. Prostitutes and sellers of alcohol.
The camaradery and bravery of some of the sailors is to be admired.
Three adapted plays
What I listened to this morning is an interesting combination of three plays:
- Bound East for Cardiff
- Moon over the Caribees
- The Long Voyage Home
All three have been adapted for National Radio and turned into one single production.
The performance was rendered in an exceptional way, especially due to the role played by George Constantin, an actor that keeps showing up in my reviews and, more importantly in the plays produced for our radio.
This time I had the chance to hear him against two other giants of our stage: Victor Rebengiuc and Stefan Iordache. For the latter I am not so convinced, but he has been universally acclaimed and who am I to judge?
Furthermore, Maia Morgerstern plays the wife of the captain, and she has won fame for her role in Mel Gibson’s production The Passion of Christ. I do not like madame Morgerstern, at least not for her work in the past twenty years...Twenty five years ago, I think I rather enjoyed her acting, but that was ages ago.
The drama takes place on the high seas...where else?
Like in better known Mutiny on the Bounty, the crew is unhappy and ready to rebel.
The captain, played by George Constantin is firm and holds his ground:
- I am the best captain, I will not ruin my reputation and go back empty handed.
The problem is thay have almost no whale oil, for in those days people were barbarians enough to kill the giant beast of the seas.
What am I saying? Norway and Japan, civilized (??) countries refuse to be part of the treaty that prevents the slaughter of whales on false and cruel pretenses.
The crw is determined to go back, for they have reached the agreed limit.
But the captain will have none of that nonsense.
He wants to have a bounty to get back to shore.
But things are complicated by the presence of his wife.
- I want to get back
- But you insisted that I should take you on board
- I can’t stand it anymore, there is nothing to see but the walls in the cabin
- I had prevented you and told you that life on the ship is extremely hard
- I can’t bear it anymore
Then a sailor comes and brings the good news. There is a pray to be hunted.
- Bring all the men, take both shifts
- If they want to ok, if they don’t make them!
But the wife starts shouting. She has a fit and goes crazy.
There are other aspects that are presented in these plays, rounded up together in one production, like the presence of women on shore. Prostitutes and sellers of alcohol.
The camaradery and bravery of some of the sailors is to be admired.
July 18, 2024
#2005-06: With O’Neill
This one-act romantic melodrama is O’Neill’s first commercially efficacious play. Set in the seamen’s forecastle on a muddled night, when the steamer Glencairn is halfway between New York and Cardiff, we see that Yank is lying in his bunk, mortally injured by a fall when he was groping for a ladder and missed his footing, falling to the deck below. The ship’s captain has been powerless to do anything for him and Yank impulsively knows that he is slowly fading. A great terror has come over him — the dread of being alone in the forecastle with the fog whistle blowing above him and the sound of snoring men about him. It is the big blustering Driscoll he must have with him — Driscoll with whom he has fought over and over again and made amends, and who he loves with the one intense human affection left to him. But it is the sea, nevertheless, that has brought him injury, the sea that has possessed him and, in death itself. Yank hungers for the land — a clandestine fact, he has never dared admit to even Driscoll, not knowing that Driscoll himself has been nurturing the same dreams. Then the possession of the sea swishes over him again, and his mind rambles in the adventures of his life as a sailor — the Argentine, Buenos Aires and La Plata, Singapore, Sydney and Cape Town where he had killed a man in fight. As the last sharp agony shoots through him, Yank abruptly perceives before ‘him “a pretty lady dressed in black”. Driscoll sinks on his life beside the dead man, his lips moving in some half-remembered prayer. This play needs to be read as it has become the customary yardstick of O'Neill's dawning maturity as an artist of the drama. Of the 15 plays O'Neill is known to have written during his first two years of playwriting, this is considered to be, in the words of Barrett Clark, O'Neill's first biographer,"the one really mature play he wrote in the prentice years. . ." (Eugene O'Neill, The Man and His Plays)
This one-act romantic melodrama is O’Neill’s first commercially efficacious play. Set in the seamen’s forecastle on a muddled night, when the steamer Glencairn is halfway between New York and Cardiff, we see that Yank is lying in his bunk, mortally injured by a fall when he was groping for a ladder and missed his footing, falling to the deck below. The ship’s captain has been powerless to do anything for him and Yank impulsively knows that he is slowly fading. A great terror has come over him — the dread of being alone in the forecastle with the fog whistle blowing above him and the sound of snoring men about him. It is the big blustering Driscoll he must have with him — Driscoll with whom he has fought over and over again and made amends, and who he loves with the one intense human affection left to him. But it is the sea, nevertheless, that has brought him injury, the sea that has possessed him and, in death itself. Yank hungers for the land — a clandestine fact, he has never dared admit to even Driscoll, not knowing that Driscoll himself has been nurturing the same dreams. Then the possession of the sea swishes over him again, and his mind rambles in the adventures of his life as a sailor — the Argentine, Buenos Aires and La Plata, Singapore, Sydney and Cape Town where he had killed a man in fight. As the last sharp agony shoots through him, Yank abruptly perceives before ‘him “a pretty lady dressed in black”. Driscoll sinks on his life beside the dead man, his lips moving in some half-remembered prayer. This play needs to be read as it has become the customary yardstick of O'Neill's dawning maturity as an artist of the drama. Of the 15 plays O'Neill is known to have written during his first two years of playwriting, this is considered to be, in the words of Barrett Clark, O'Neill's first biographer,"the one really mature play he wrote in the prentice years. . ." (Eugene O'Neill, The Man and His Plays)
December 4, 2024
شرقاً إلى كاردييف، يوجين اونيل، ١٩١٤، ترجمة نعيم عطيه
تدور أحداث المسرحية في قاع سفينة، حيث يتجمع الطاقم الذي يواجه مشاعر العزلة والتعب النفسي. في هذا المكان، لا يوجد مكان للاختباء أو الهروب من الماضي أو الأوجاع النفسية. تسلط المسرحية الضوء على مأساة إنسانية تظهر من خلال التفاعل بين الشخصيات.
تدور أحداث المسرحية في قاع سفينة، حيث يتجمع الطاقم الذي يواجه مشاعر العزلة والتعب النفسي. في هذا المكان، لا يوجد مكان للاختباء أو الهروب من الماضي أو الأوجاع النفسية. تسلط المسرحية الضوء على مأساة إنسانية تظهر من خلال التفاعل بين الشخصيات.
March 21, 2020
The juxtaposition of the intense relationship between two friends and what could be considered indifference between the rest of the crew is what brings this one together.
August 11, 2022
čitanje jednočinki da se stigne reading challenge odradit heh
July 3, 2024
Quite sad, but not very powerful on its own.
Read with three other plays from the same setting.
Read with three other plays from the same setting.
February 5, 2014
يوجين أونيل 1888 -1953 .
عدة أفكار يطرحها النص و قد حاولت ربط علاقتها بحياة الفنان و اسقاطاتها في هذا النص:
فكرة الطفولة الغير مستقرة لأونيل و اسقاطها على تجربة البحار التي عاشها و التي تعبر عن القسوة و البؤس "و الناحية السلبية التي جمعت البحارة في نقدهم لأي شيء يتعلق بالمكان الموجدين فيه عبرت عنها بتبسيط لمقطع أسفل السفينة الذي يعطي ايحاء بميلانها و بالتالي عدم الاستقرار و خطوطها الحادة قسوة حياة البحار وتناوب الزوايا المنفرجة و الحادة تعبيرا عن المشاعر المتناقضة التي يحملونها لأسلوب الحياة هذه
فكرة الخوف من المجهول "الله و العقاب" نراها بالإضاءة الموجهة الى سقف المسرح و تتلاشى خلف الأشرعة الى ما لا نهاية
و نرى بالطرف المقابل الاضاءة الموجهة للأسفل و تتمثل بحتمية الموت وشعور يانك بالوحدة اثناء هذه التجربة بحيث ان الإضاءة تخترق مكان وجوده فوق الصناديق و التي وضعت بزاوية تكوين السفينة ليكون مهملاً
حياة أونيل الاسرية المشتتة و اسقاطها بالنص بقول يانك "شعرت برغبة لترك حياة البحر معك............و نحصل على مزرعة" أمله بالاستقرار عبرت عنها بالشراعيين الحمر المتجهان الى الامام و احتوائهما على ساري كتمثيل للارتباط بشيء و بقاء الشراع الأزرق غير مرتبط , اما عن الشراع الأزرق بالزاوية اليمينية و المتجه للداخل و هو الذي اعطى ايحاء اندثار هذا الأمل
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews