Strange Interlude

by Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude controversial work of extraordinary power, remarkable length ~~ nine acts ~~ and use of asides to express the characters' unspoken thoughts. An outstanding, somewhat Freudian play from one of the twentieth century's most significant writers.

Nina Leeds is a mercurial woman, haunted and broken by the death of her fiancé Gordon Shaw in the First World War – after her father had convinced him to postpone the marriage until his safe return. Always searching for the ever-elusive happiness Shaw gave her, she flirts with the feelings of the various men in her life: her friend Charles Marsden, deeply in love with her, is nevertheless too shy to confess; her new husband Sam Evans, with his own history of mental illness and inability to give her a child; Edmund 'Ned' Darrell, so desperate for her to leave Sam that he gives her the child she craves so badly. And then finally comes little Gordon, the result of Nina's affair with Ned, ignorant of his parentage – the only man she really dotes on whilst the others orbit around her...

Eugene O'Neill's play Strange Interlude opened on Broadway in January 1928, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Classics, Nobel Prize, American, Fiction

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

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

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

[1927. A motel room somewhere in America. A very young AYN RAND is sitting on the bed, impatiently glancing at her watch. We hear a key turning in the door, then EUGENE O'NEILL enters, carrying a briefcase]

RAND: Well?

O'NEILL: I did it. I rewrote it the way you said. It's right here.

[He pats the briefcase. RAND throws her arms around him]

RAND: Darling!

O'NEILL: Do you want to read it?

RAND: No, no, I'm too excited. Tell me what happens.

O'NEILL: Well, there's this beautiful woman, Nina. She's in a black depression because her fiancé Gordon has been killed in the war.

RAND: Uh-huh.

O'NEILL: Now there's this guy Charles who's in love with her. But he doesn't dare tell her how he feels. And there's this doctor, Ned, who's physically attracted to her, but that's all. And there's this third guy Sam, who's kind of a dope and wants to marry her.

RAND: Sounds okay so far.

O'NEILL: You don't think I need more men who are helplessly smitten with Nina and worship the very ground she walks on? I could easily--

RAND: No, three's enough. So what happens next?

O'NEILL: Well, Nina's kind of crazy because Gordon is dead. She gets a job as a nurse at a hospital for wounded servicemen, and she starts sleeping with the patients. Charles is pretty worried about her. He wants her to be happy, and he thinks the best thing is for her to marry Sam, who seems like a normal kind of guy. So he persuades her to do that, despite the fact that he's in love with her himself.

RAND: He's going to regret it, right?

O'NEILL: Oh yes, absolutely. So Nina marries Sam. She doesn't love him, but Charles has convinced her that marrying him will settle her down, and she thinks that once she has a child she'll feel better. She makes sure she gets pregnant right away.

RAND: And then?

O'NEILL: So she's pregnant, and she meets Sam's mother for the first time. Now Sam doesn't know she's pregnant yet, but she tells the mother.

RAND: I don't see where you're going yet--

O'NEILL: Give me a minute. Sam's mother says she has something very important to tell her. Sam's father died insane, and so did his grandfather and his aunt. There's heriditary insanity in the family.

RAND: But why didn't Sam know about--

O'NEILL: His mother kept it secret from him because she wanted him to be happy. Anyway, now she says Nina has to get an abortion right away. Nina's broken up. She loves her unborn child more than anything in the world. She tells the mother that she doesn't love Sam, she only married him to have a child. If she needs to have an abortion, she's leaving him.

RAND: That's good! Nina should just have done what she wanted to do. It's better to be selfish, right? So what happens next?

O'NEILL: Sam's mother tells her she can't leave her husband, it would drive him insane for sure. And she has to get an abortion, but she also has to give him a child. She needs to find someone else to be the father and pass it off as Sam's. Even though all of this is killing her.

RAND: So who does she pick?

O'NEILL: She remembers Ned, the doctor. She has her abortion, then starts an affair with Ned and gets pregnant again.

RAND: But doesn't Sam--

O'NEILL: Sam doesn't suspect a thing. He's a dope, right?

RAND: Okay, so now what?

O'NEILL: Well, Nina has fallen in love with Ned. She wants to leave Sam to be with him. But Ned knows it would destroy him, and he sacrifices his happiness and Nina's so that--

RAND: Right, I get it. Same deal again, they should just have selfishly done what was going to make them happy.

O'NEILL: [Beaming] I thought you'd like that.

RAND: Well yeah, I guess I do in a way. I mean, it's swell that you read my little essay on Objectivism and all. But--

O'NEILL: But what?

RAND: But, why's the plot so dumb? You're this great playwright. It's, I dunno, kind of clunky.

O'NEILL: Look, I--

RAND: I mean, do you like it?

O'NEILL: Ah, no, not really. You're right. I guess I mainly did it for you.

[A terrible silence. O'NEILL suddenly realizes what he has said]

RAND: You just did it to make me happy. You haven't understood anything, have you?

O'NEILL: Look, in a way I was being selfish, I was hoping you'd--

RAND: Get out. Now. And take your dumb play with you.

[She reaches into the bedside table and pulls out a gun. O'NEILL backs towards the door, still stammering excuses, and leaves precipitately. RAND stands there for a moment looking after him, then shrugs, moves to the phone and dials a number]

RAND: Hello? I'm at the motel. Yeah, come on over. But I'm warning you now, I'm in not in a good mood.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking at these two works now, one is so struck by the similarities, it is remarkable to consider their differing fates at the time of their appearance. As it happens I finished reading The Awakening the same day as I went to see Strange Interlude, so the points of comparison stood out. Both are American, experimental in form, controversial in content.

Both feature female characters who are constrained by the society in which they live - or perceive themselves as being thus constrained. Edna and Nina are adored by a variety of men and exploit that as suits them. They are both unusual characters who question the social conventions around them.

Edna, in The Awakening, is never a 'good' mother or wife, increasingly dissatisfied with the expectations of society, she begins to take steps to live her own life. She more or less abandons her children, she moves out of her house once she has developed a capacity to earn money via her art, she takes lovers - all this whilst her husband attempts to keep up appearances, hoping as a doctor has advised him, that Edna's behaviour is an aberration that will correct itself.

Nina, having lost her juvenile love in WWI, becomes a nurse of wounded soldiers and starts sleeping with them - maybe that will make them feel better. That nothing is going to assuage the guilt she carries for the death of her beloved, is the rationale for all her actions. She then marries a well meaning dullard she doesn't love, so that he can provide the children she needs in her life as a sensible substitute to look after - doubtless even she can see that sex with every injured US soldier isn't going to be possible. Deliberately marrying other than for love, she then finds out that her husband's family has hereditary madness, this after falling pregnant. Her husband is in blissful ignorance of both these things and she continues with scheming to keep it that way. Abortion is no problem, and then taking a secret lover in order to provide a baby with better odds of being born sane. Science in this period raises such moral issues as eugenics.

Chopin writes in the 1890s, O'Neill in the 1920s, so some thirty years later, but nonetheless, both are writing of scandalous, controversial topics. Both writers were known. Yet Chopin's novel was generally critically reviled and forgotten until it received a feminist stimulus in the second half of the twentieth century. Interestingly, from that special interest beginning - 'it is good because....' - it has become considerably elevated to more like - 'it is good' fullstop. O'Neill's play was as long as Chopin's novel was to the point, six hours or so, it was very difficult technically due to his experimention with asides to the audience, a substantial aspect of the play. Undoubtedly he was better known to his audiences, having already won two Pulitzers. Still, although it too received censorial treatment here and there, including banning, it was nonetheless a huge hit.

It is impossible not to wonder about the different immediate fates of these works. Yes, O'Neill was more famous than Chopin, but this does not strike me as sufficient explanation by any means. Male fares better than female? Maybe, but the US by then had lots of hugely popular female writers. Perhaps it is relevant that the 1920s in the US was in general a freer period than before and after.

I wonder, however, if the ways in which these stories end has something to do with it. Nina is a morally ambiguous character. She claims always to be acting to further the happiness of others (at the expense of the happiness of others, we might observe), but even if this claim were true, it means she is doing so through methods that we can scarcely feel happy about. Lying to her husband, a secret abortion, a lover who she keeps even after she no longer needs him for his original purpose. And one can also question if it is true that she is acting in a noble way to further the happiness of others. She is a person who wishes to suffer, this is established right at the start of the play. She never wavers from that, maybe even keeping her lover is to exacerbate her pain. Even after her husband dies and her son, guessing the situation, gives his approval of her marrying her lover, she does no such thing, but instead marries the man who has been her substitute father and a figure to be gently mocked and used over the decades. No straightforward bliss for Nina.

Edna has a husband who is willing to put up with her bad behaviour to an extent we can admire from a distance. She has two lovers, one of which is also a love. Having established her independence, now living on her own, earning enough to support both her and the woman she has to do the 'work', having foisted her children on her own mother, and two lovers at the begging, she suddenly decides to kill herself. Frankly, if I could get Nina and Edna close enough, I'd knock their heads together, hope that brought them to their senses. The ending of The Awakening has no good explanation. I understand, from reading around, that it is due to an inability to otherwise be free of constraint. But there is no such thing as freedom from constraint and Chopin certainly doesn't think there is. How do we avoid the conclusion that this is not a strong woman, but a weak one, maybe even a mentally ill one? It is simply not sufficient to say she was the victim of her society. The author herself lived in an almost entirely female society as far as immediate family went and was not exactly conventional in her own dealings with men. Appreciating the reasons why The Awakening is so highly regarded, it has shortcomings that leave me in doubt overall about it. One must also have doubts about a writer who withdrew the moment her work was criticised. It was not only criticised for content, but also for style and I am sure if Chopin had listened to some of that criticism and acted upon it, she might have ended up an important writer beyond the current justifications for her canonisation. What we can conclude is that Chopin was no driven writer, if she so easily withdrew from it.

Of course, Strange Interlude is nothing if not six hours of shortcomings. The National Theatre's current production of it is cut down to a mere three and a half hours or so and one can only suppose that it has been pruned with an agenda. There is an imbalance between tragedy and comedy which I doubt exists in the original, the one that was so hugely popular when it first appeared. If The Awakening was reviled, Strange Interlude was both pilloried and parodied. Most famously in Animal Crackers, you can see the relevant segment here. And there is Spencer Tracy with Joan Bennett in My and My Gal here.

Continue here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

[Lilirose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo dramma è "un pasticcio d'amore e di odio e di dolore e di maternità", come fa dire l'autore alla sua protagonista, quella Nina che è il deus ex machina della vicenda. E' una donna fatale intrappolata nella sua stessa morbosità e smania di possesso; non un personaggio positivo, ma una straordinaria creazione letteraria. Le sue controparti maschili sono tre, dalle personalità opposte ma accomunati da una passione totalizzante per Nina: carnale quella di Ned, sentimentale e convenzionale quella di Sam, platonica e quasi paterna quella di Charles. Sono i tre lati dell'amore, a cui Nina non vuole rinunciare e che farà di tutto per conservarsi sino alla fine, rovinando di fatto la loro vita e per riflesso anche la sua. Solo quando suo figlio, prodotto e simulacro di questi tre amori, la lascerà sola pronto a farsi una vita lontano dal suo controllo Nina si sentirà finalmente in pace, svuotata ma libera di tornare ad un'esistenza semplice e quasi infantile.
E' un dramma che riesce ad essere allo stesso tempo figlio dei suoi tempi e molto attuale: la tecnica del flusso di coscienza è tipica del modernismo e le influenze delle teorie Freudiane (che avevano vasta eco in quel periodo) sono evidenti, tra complessi edipici e frustrazioni sessuali; eppure la sensibilità con cui sono tratteggiati i personaggi è vicina alla nostra, sfidano le convenzioni del tempo per diventare universali.
Il dualismo tra i pensieri intimi (esplicitati tramite lunghi monologhi interiori) e i dialoghi veri e propri, per quanto straniante permette un'immersività quasi totale, perchè consente di scandagliare la psiche dei protagonisti, imparando a conoscerne mente e anima.
Un' opera profonda e articolata (ben nove atti che si snodano su più di vent'anni), che ho letto e riletto scoprendone ogni volta qualche lato nuovo: la consiglio a tutti gli amanti del buon teatro.

[أحمد صــــلاح · Rating 5 out of 5]

أتذكر جيدا و ان اخذ أنفاسي بين الحين والآخر
وأفكر بين نفسي في الحكم
وأفكر إن كنت أنا إحدى شخصيات كاتب مسرحي قرر أن
يكتب إحدى المسرحيات
ولكن فكرت في ح��اتي و قررت أنه سيكون مؤلف فاشل
إن قرر أن يبتدع شخصية كشخصيتي المملة لإمتاع عدد
من الجماهير
كل هذا يدور في رأسي أثناء قراءة حوار الأشخاص
وأفكارهم التي تدور في أنفسهم
أحيانا
كنت أقول نينا اللعينة
ثم استطرد لا إنها مسكينة
ثم انتهيت إلى القول الجازم بانها نينا اللعينة المسكينة
سام هو الشرف في هذه المسرحية لا يشوبها شائبة
سوى ساذجته ودائما الشرف ساذج
داريل المنحط النبيل الأب الكسير العبد المجنون
وتشارلي العزيز المسكين ما هو إلا تشارلي العزيز المسكين
يوجين أونيل
بالتأكيد عبقري استطاع أن يحبك كل شيء
كعادة العباقرة من خبر قرأه في جريدة
و لا انسى دور الترجمة الرائعة على أيدي المبدع بهاء طاهر
كالعادة وكأني أقرا النص الأصلي بمتعته وجمال ودقة أسلوبه وحواره

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

O’Neill uses Freud and stream-of-consciousness to explore trauma, secrets, sex.

[Cymru Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What mortal else who hears shall claim he was born clear of the dark angel?”

These words by Aeschylus appear in Agamemnon, just before the eponymous king is killed. Spoken by the chorus, they are a reaction to a prophecy; and what are prophecies but moments of truth, clarity crystalized in the form of a supernatural intuition, which give voice to the true word of God conveyed through a helpless vessel destined to be ignored?

I bring up this quote with regard to Strange Interlude because as we look at the characters – each pitiful and unsympathetic in their own way – we may tend to tire of them and their insincerity; but only he that can say “I” to Aeschylus’ dark question can really judge them harshly. Granted, for the readers not born under the particular unlucky star that guides these characters – that of the thousand-pointed incestuous maternal quagmire – I don’t expect they should enjoy very much having to deal with the whining, and the cowardice, and the deceit that is on full display here. I can see why audiences were baffled. The play is overlong, but this primary detraction is more than made up for by absolutely perfect opening and closing scenes, the former which rises again to the heights of Agamemnon in its relation of Gordon’s death in World War II to the threnody for the fallen soldiers at Ilium, the latter with its crepuscular language powerful enough to summon the beautiful God of Death. We may all be separate from one another in our own personal struggles with life in the pursuit of happiness, but nevertheless, the tragic Oedipal force at the center of Interlude remains but one of infinite inroads that leads back to the divine originator of sin, that same God which has caused us to be born.

For that, this play is worthy, heartbreaking, beautiful, and sublime.

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recensione originale: https://sonnenbarke.wordpress.com/201...

Eugene O'Neill pubblica nel 1928 questo testo teatrale per cui ottiene anche il Pulitzer nello stesso anno. Un testo a mio parere modernissimo, almeno nell'impostazione, ma al passo coi tempi per la tematica.

L'impostazione del testo è così particolare che non riesco a capire come sia possibile rappresentarlo a teatro: accanto alle normali battute, ai vari personaggi sono attribuite battute che non sono parlate ma rappresentano bensì i loro pensieri. Come portare tutto questo sul palcoscenico? Non ho una risposta, non mi sono informata sulle rappresentazioni, a essere sincera. Ma sarebbe interessante farlo.

Inoltre, il testo è molto lungo, ben nove atti per 306 pagine. I pensieri dei personaggi sono distinti dalle battute vere e proprie nella mia edizione grazie a un carattere tipografico più piccolo, quindi non è difficile da seguire. Il testo secondo me si presta molto bene alla lettura.

La storia è quella di Nina, una giovane donna che perde il fidanzato nella guerra, fidanzato che avrebbe voluto sposare prima della sua partenza per la guerra, ma il padre di lei ha proibito loro le nozze dicendo che sarebbe stato ingiusto nei confronti della figlia, a causa del pericolo appunto che il ragazzo, Gordon, restasse ucciso. E così accade, e Nina non riesce mai a perdonare se stessa né il padre per non essersi quantomeno concessa a Gordon prima della sua partenza. Decide così di andare a lavorare come infermiera in un ospedale militare alla fine della guerra.

Di lei è follemente, ma castamente, innamorato Marsden, un amico di famiglia che l'ha vista crescere. Ma non riesce a dichiararsi e si strugge per questo amore non ricambiato e neppure immaginato da Nina.

Il fantasma di Gordon aleggia su tutta l'opera, non darà mai veramente tregua a Nina.

Le tematiche sono prettamente freudiane, per questo dicevo che l'opera è al passo coi tempi. Marsden è praticamente innamorato di sua madre, vive costantemente attaccato alle sue sottane e non riesce a lasciarla neppure per il breve tempo che si concede per fare visita a Nina. A sua volta Nina vive un rapporto ambivalente nei confronti del padre, che odia per non averle concesso di sposare Gordon, ma al tempo stesso idolatra e a tratti si approccia a lui come farebbbe una bambina piccola. Stesso trattamento riserva a Marsden, che nei momenti di tensione chiama "padre". Anche con lui il rapporto sembra essere edipico.

Si parla anche di follia in questo dramma, ma nonostante quello che rischierebbe di esserne affetto sia un altro personaggio, pare proprio che la vera "folle" sia Nina, che dopo la morte di Gordon e per tutta la vita assume comportamenti del tutto sregolati e non riesce mai a dare un corso "normale" alla propria vita, nonostante le apparenze.

L'ho trovato un testo molto interessante sia per tematica che per struttura. All'inizio ero un po' timorosa, avendo letto che O'Neill faceva grande uso del flusso di coscienza in questo testo: non amo il flusso di coscienza, con cui ho sempre avuto un brutto rapporto. Tuttavia il testo è stato facile da seguire anche per me e ho trovato molto intrigante ascoltare i personaggi parlare tra di loro e contemporaneamente scoprirne i pensieri più reconditi.

Il libro è stato pubblicato in italiano nel 1972 nella collana di teatro di Einaudi con il titolo Strano interludio e credo che non sia facile reperirlo, ma in caso riusciate a trovarlo lo consiglio, ammesso naturalmente che vi piaggia leggere opere teatrali.

[lanalang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Con questa opera faccio la mia conoscenza con il premio Nobel Eugene O’Neill, di cui non avevo finora letto nulla, e posso dire di esserne entusiasta. È un testo teatrale introspettivo, venato di misticismo e molto particolare dal momento che gli scambi di battute tra i protagonisti sono, dalla prima all’ultima pagina, intervallate dai pensieri degli stessi. Sarei curiosa di vederlo in teatro perché ritengo che non sia affatto facile metterlo in scena.

Verso la fine dell’ultimo atto c’è una frase che riassume benissimo il contenuto di questo dramma: ”…parleremo insieme dei vecchi tempi…di quand’ero ragazza…quando ero felice…prima di innamorarmi di Gordon Shaw, e che cominciasse tutto questo pasticcio d’amore e di odio e di dolore e di maternità…”
Ecco, “Strano Interludio” è proprio questo, un pasticcio di amore, odio, dolore e maternità, dove la vita, che scorre tra successi personali, paure, ferite, rimpianti e rimorsi, altro non è che “Uno strano e buio interludio nell’elettrico spettacolo di Dio Padre”.

Ecco un altro passaggio del testo:
NINA: L'errore cominciò quando Dio fu creato a immagine dell'uomo. Naturalmente, le donne lo vedevano a quel modo, ma gli uomini avrebbero dovuto essere più cavalieri, ricordarsi della loro madre, e fare Dio a immagine della donna! Ma il Dio degli Dei, il Padrone, è sempre stato un uomo. È questo che falsa così la vita, e rende la morte così innaturale. Avremmo dovuto immaginare che la vita era stata creata nel dolore della maternità di Dio-Madre. E allora avremmo capito perché noi, Suoi figli, abbiamo ereditato il dolore, poiché avremmo saputo che il ritmo della nostra vita batte col Suo gran cuore, lacerato dallo spasimo dell'amore e della maternità. E avremmo sentito che la morte significa la riunione con Lei, un rifluire della Sua sostanza, di nuovo sangue del Suo sangue, pace della Sua pace! Non sarebbe più logico e più soddisfacente che avere un Dio maschio nel cui petto batte l'egoismo, un petto troppo duro, e scomodissimo per le nostre teste stanche?

[Ariana Harşani · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 ⭐️

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Very long play that deals with some out of bounds subject matter for the 1920's including abortion and making a baby behind a husband's back - simply because he is not good breeding material.

I especially enjoyed the internalized sidebars - these make up the bulk of the "dialogue".

This is the rare example of a play that is better read than watched.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A humongous 9 act melodrama-fest that shouldn't work, but somehow does - simply because of how the acts play off each other, and each successive act undermines the previous one. I've seen other reviews saying that this is too much transparency, too much tell-not-show - and yet the interior monologues are EXACTLY what elevates this play beyond mere soap opera. The mystery is not in what the characters feel or what goes on in their heads, but how LITTLE it matters in the grand scope of time itself. Our own silly melodramatic thoughts are strange interludes for the years, breezing within the deserts of the mind, and this is conveyed through the symphony-esque structure of the whole play. It works because it is long and unwieldy, and uses this unwieldiness as a weapon to diminish the importance of the melodrama that happens in individual acts. This is definitely not one of O'Neill's best, but it is experimental anti-soap opera with a heavy intellectual hand guiding all the apparent emotion. Almost like a prose poem, than a mere play.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill – it has won The 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eugene O’Neill has also written Desire Under the Elms https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/... and other remarkable plays

9 out of 10

If we look on the internet, we find some very interesting things about this drama, it was ‘one of the few modern plays to make extensive use of a soliloquy technique, in which the characters speak their inner thoughts to the audience’, in the original it is six hours long, hence it was produced on different days, mini-series they would call it today

The version I have heard was produced locally, with three of the celebrated thespians – if only in this realm, albeit Ion Caramitru, deceased about one year ago, is present in the first Mission Impossible, the first with Tom Cruise that is, directed by the mesmerizing De Palma https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/05/...
Ion Caramitru is one of the spies that appear in the first few minutes, and he used to be the head of the UNITER, the local association of theater actors, directors and more, not one of my favorites nevertheless, the giant that we have had here was George Constantin https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/...

The latter was on the same level with Jack Nicholson, and for that matter, anybody else, part of the crème de la crème, the nec plus ultra – a spoiler alert needs to be inserted here, maybe it would have been appropriate above, but here it is – and he shared a similar event with Jack Nicholson, on the stage…
About Nicholson we find from The Kid Stays in The Picture https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/... by Robert Evans, who had been an actor, head of Paramount, and the producer of classics like Chinatown, The Godfather, Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, who has discovered The Great Seducer

Bob Evans was seeing an actor for some part, but he was fascinated not by the one trying to get the role, but by Jack Nicholson, who had no line, but whose presence was so magnetic, and something similar has happened to our very own Geroge Constantin, when the Bolshoi was visiting, the guests were overwhelmed by the actor who did not have lines, but whose majesty, aura, ability to change the atmosphere was formidable
Nina Leeds is the…leading role in Strange Interlude – she is played in this local production that has been aired by Radio Cultural by an extremely attractive thespian, Violeta Andrei, I am not sure if she is still alive now, she could be in her eighties, but some fifty years ago, she was a fabulous actress, married to a big shot

From that point view, we should have avoided her films, plays, since she was part of the nomenclature, sitting right there, with the vile apparatchiks, the dogs that helped the pigs keep control, the safety net for the tyrant, Ceausescu, one of the worst in Europe and the world…I am proud to have helped with his demise
There is a web link in the last paragraph, the one that I put at the end of all my notes, to brag, and ask for some support, if anybody stays that long on these pages, and has any advice, suggestion…as in the AT&T case, which is another story, but you see that below, if you have the patience, the time to lose in this space…

Nina Leeds marries Sam Evans (in the version I am actually writing about, this is Caramitru) but she finds from her mother-in-law that there is a disease in their family, and relatives have gone insane, which poses a question, nay, it is more serious than that, something that today would not be considered, in parts of the world
The main character does not want to have a baby that will go mad – which makes me think of America and the crazy laws they have in some Trump states there, Arizona has recently brought back to life a law from the time of the Civil War, so that women are forbidden to have an abortion, even in extreme cases and it is heinous

We have had this situation, where my spouse was pregnant, she did not know that she was, and went to an Xray with one of the six dogs she made me have in the house, and then, if the fetus is exposed to that radiation, it is fetus more likely to be born with medical conditions, and thus an abortion was performed…
In the play, the solution they find is to have a baby, but not with Sam, the husband, she will conceive it with Ned Darrell – Alexandru Repan, an appreciate actor, we met with his son at the Downtown sauna, where the best performers are clients, and we enjoy their presence, once in a while – and they hide the truth

When the boy has grown, Ned is mocking Sam, and the child is not aware who his real ‘parent’ is and so he gets furious and wants to see the physician gone, albeit the latter is the biological father, and the two should be close, there is tension, and we have to see what will come out of this complicated menage a trois or quattre
It makes me think of The Force of Circumstance https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... by Somerset Maugham - in this story, a white, British woman marries this man, who is in charge of a remote part of the British Empire, this is happening about one hundred years ago, or more, and when she moves to this outpost, she finds that a local woman is trying to change things, the native has had three children with the white fellow, and then she got kicked out, because of racism…

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play left me exhausted. I still feel exhausted mentally from this and it's hard to say I've truly felt this with other long works of art. It's usually a sense of heartbreak that something was leaving me or as though I'd conquered something, but this... it feels like I've lived so long. Yet the characters stay just the same as they were when the play begun, which leaves me with this odd feeling of sadness, to be honest. Initially I felt as though everyone got what they wanted, and on one hand it feels as though they did, as this play's truth is that what matters is the present moment, but it's hard not to feel a deep sense of regret when I think about the lost time. It's truly conflicting, I guess in the same way the characters are conflicting and conflicted themselves, as people tend to be but this in particular just left me with such mixed emotions. It's such a real reflection of human beings. "Happy" ending or not, I can't help but feel this deep sense of pity for all lost love and dead time.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

high-brow soap opera

[عدنان العبار · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange Interlude is a play about insanity, acted out by sane people. It revolves around Nina, a young woman who loved a man called Gordon, but told him that she would delay sleeping with him until they're married. Gordon, her fiance, the superstar athlete, goes to war and dies there. She regrets not sleeping with him, regrets not bearing his child. This haunts her for the rest of her life. She becomes insane and restless. Her father, the Classics professor, who wishes nothing but the best for her, understands the terrible situation she is in, but doesn't know what to do. Charles is her father's friend, and someone who obsessively lusts over women, especially Nina, and has the bizarre hope of her offering her body to him but is also too cowardly to ask of anything and is not without his issues. She informs them that she will work as a nurse in a health facility, caring for seamen, since her lover Gordon died working for the NAVI. She finds there Dr. Ned, who sees that she is sleeping around with the patients, and makes sexual advances. And the story soon convolves and becomes stranger and stranger.

The whole play really seems like a strange interlude, of the passions of human beings in conflict, and their solutions to their insanities back-firing. There's no one who is stable. Everyone is fluctuating all the time.

The play adopts a stream-of-consciousness style, and is shallowly Freudian -- all characters are overly sexual, almost every action is driven impulsively, everything driven by sexual appetite. It's such a bizarre play. A truly strange interlude in the eyes of God, as Charles Marsden notices by the end of the play. Their lives, a fleeting and transient interlude in the screens of God.

I enjoyed reading it, but a play should not be 180 pages long. That cannot be acted on the stage. And it covers a wide swath of time, which is intended, but is also impractical. It was enjoyable, it was sobering. To see people in their primes destroying their lives for sexual appetite, that is very horrowing. And it can't be said not to happen to people, both men and women. Often, our desires -- especially the more carnal ones -- can alter our actions and override us if we were not conscious and if we do not enforce responsibility on ourselves.

[Evi Routoula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Η Νίνα -νέα κοπέλα και κόρη ενός μορφωμένου καθηγητή φιλολογίας - ήταν ερωτευμένη με τον Γκόρντον, πιλότο που πέθανε στον πόλεμο ( μιλάμε πάντα για τον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο). Παντρεύεται τον αγαθό Σαμ, ευελπιστώντας ότι θα βρει τη γαλήνη και την ευτυχία δίπλα του. Όταν η πεθερά της τής αποκαλύπτει ότι δεν πρέπει να κάνει παιδί με τον Σαμ επειδή υπάρχει ιστορικό φρενοβλάβειας στην οικογένεια και μεγάλη πιθανότητα γέννησης ενός άρρωστου μωρού, η Νίνα αποφασίζει να κάνει στα κρυφά παιδί με τον γιατρό Νεντ, οικογενειακό φίλο. Ο Νεντ συμφωνεί και η αρχική ιδέα είναι το γεγονός να γίνει μηχανικά και ποτέ κανείς να μην μάθει την αλήθεια. Το μωρό γεννιέται, ο Σαμ και όλος ο κόσμος εκτός από τη Νίνα και τον Νεντ πιστεύουν ότι είναι παιδί του Σαμ. Αλλά αυτό που ξεκίνησε μηχανικά μετατρέπεται σε έρωτα: και ο Νεντ αλλά και η Νίνα ερωτεύονται ο ένας τον άλλον. Γνωρίζοντας ότι η αλήθεια θα αποβεί μοιραία για τον Σαμ, θυσιάζουν τη δική τους ευτυχία. Όλα αυτά τα παρακολουθεί ο αιώνιος φίλος της Νίνας, ο Τσάρλι, ένας σχεδόν ανέραστος συγγραφέας και φίλος του πατέρα της Νίνας.
Ο Ευγένιος Ο Νηλ πλέκει ένα μεγάλο και ενδιαφέρον έργο, ένα γαϊτανάκι για τέσσερις: μια γυναίκα και τρεις άντρες που ο καθένας την αγαπά πραγματικά με τον δικό του τρόπο.
Παίχτηκε για πρώτη φορά στην Ελλάδα το 1943 με πρωταγωνίστρια την κυρία Κατερίνα, τον Δημήτρη Χορν, τον Αντώνη Γιαννίδη και τον Ανδρέα Φειλιππίδη.

[Luke Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that's a long play in nine acts! I guess somebody had to counteract the prevalence of one-act plays with something. It's honestly hilarious and I think the only way to really get the most out of it is to view it as a comedy wherein the only tragedies are beds of the characters' own making, and they all end up getting what they want whether intentionally or not. Excellently satirizes what are undoubtedly of-its-time and also universal perspectives on gender/sexuality/love/intimacy/etc with the story of one manipulative woman and the numerous who are hopelessly intertwined and/or (but mostly and) obsessed with her. You get to look directly into the stream of consciousness of every character, which leads to a lot of laugh out loud moments. I do feel like this was written as a play for you to read, not be performed, as the descriptions of the actors and costume and set are so detailed and intimate as to leave nothing up to the imagination. Overall well worth my time and seriously, it's hilarious.

[Rasmus Tillander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melodraama yhdeksässä (!) näytöksessä.

Strange Interlude on varmasti ollut vuonna 1928 melkoinen kokemus! Sen lisäksi, että näytelmä kesti yli viisi tuntia, siinä esimerkiksi aborttia, mielisairautta ja pettämistä. Melodraamaa ei puutu lainkaan kun kolme miestä omalla tavallaan kokee vastustamatonta magnetismia saman naisen äärellä. Näytelmä kulkee läpi keskushenkilönsä Ninan elämän parikymppisestä juuri rakastajansa menettäneestä hermorauniosta vanhan äidin kiihkeään omistushaluun pojastaan. Välissä on ihmissuhdekiemuroita, mystiikkaa ja paljon psykoanalyysia.

Näytelmä on tunnettu siitä, että siinä käytetään huomattavasti sisäisiä monologeja, joista useimmat noudattelevat tajunnanvirtatekniikkaa. Mikä tietenkin sopii oivasti näytelmään, jonka keskiössä ovat salatut himot ja synkät salaisuudet. Kokonaisuutena näytelmä onkin aika toimiva, mutta ehkä kyllä oikeasti vähän liian pitkä.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really was a “strange interlude”. Nina had her three men in her life, the husband, the father, and the lover. It was interesting to see how each relationship played out in her life. In the end, the lover relationship came to an end while the other two remained. (Though the husband eventually ended through sudden yet peaceful death.) The storyline tells of how a love struck girl deals with the loss of her would be husband if not for the war and the chaos that happens when broken people try to influence each other.
Script wise, there was a lot of thought dialogues which made it difficult to remember if others heard what they were saying or not. There was also a lot of description which made the script read almost exactly like a novel.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read quite a few plays n high school, and we didn't get to this one of O'Neill's. The characters are, for the most part, unlikeable, and the mood is remarkably depressing. Riches do not happiness make, and it seems that rarely is anyone truthful. Does there exist a person who doesn't manipulate others to get what they think they want? Certainly not in the world of this O'Neill play! And it just keeps going with one more act, which is the point. Life keeps going with folks telling lies, cheating, and manipulating. So much so that this might make a good basis for a new soap opera. (I enjoy the play as entertainment and art; its revelations about human nature are too accurate to enjoy the story or the characters.)

[Dan Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The mistake began when God was created in a male image… We should have imagined life as created in the birth-pain of God the mother. Then we would understand why we, her children, have an inherited pain…”

Such an interesting play! Seems awfully risqué for 1921, but I guess people have always been people. Just like “long days journey…“, This play had very long scene descriptions, which almost made it feel like reading a 250 page book.

Unlike the other play, O’Neill uses “spoken aides” to reveal the thoughts of each character and advance the story. The thoughts were the majority of the script. I wonder how this is performed? Is there a narrator reading off their thoughts as the characters stand there? I want to watch this one.

This one deserved the Pulitzer!

[Anna Muthalaly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would not re read- soooo long and repetitive and like, weirdly obsessed with biological predictions of destiny? Interesting that this is now my 4th O’Neill play— homie clearly was working through like, blood is destiny demons. Some might call this eugenics. I am some.

That said, this is soooo much better its contemporaries. No wonder O’Neill won the Pulitzer four times — he really is head and shoulders better than other writers of his time. Truly interesting things with form happening here, and my research suggests that actual stage productions of this show are by nature interesting.

This is the 12th play I read in my quest to read everything awarded the Pulitzer prize

[Ali Nazifpour · Rating 3 out of 5]

My least favorite O'Neill, although it's still a good play. It's way too long and lacks focus it could benefit from losing a few acts, maybe begin at the main heroine's marriage. The play follows the story of one woman's life from losing one lover to WWI, marrying a man and deciding to have another's man child because of inheritary inanity in the man's relatives, to what happens after she's widowed. I feel like O'Neill is less sympathetic to the characters of this play. Still, a very entertaining read and like always, with very compelling dialog.

[Frank McAdam · Rating 4 out of 5]

O'Neill was without doubt the greatest American playwright. This work, while occasionally melodramatic and even lurid, probes deeply the personalities of its characters as they deal with unrequited love and the darkest of secrets. It also shows how their personalities change over the course of years in a manner that's almost Proustian.

[Tavia Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely exhilarating—an outpouring of passion through intense inner monologues, a soul-baring quest for truth. Love, hate, and madness unfold and transform across the twists and turns of a life spanning decades.

[Uri Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The soliloquy technique (in which the characters monologue their inner thoughts in sentence fragments) is what makes this play stand out. Unfortunately, that also makes the play very long. Nine acts?!

[G. Pug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal and controversial for the time, O’Neil weaves all of our meager struggles into one beautifully told story.

[Justin W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant Play - kindle edition adequate

The play is phenomenal, not surprising as it is a Pulitzer winner. The kindle edition was fine, nothing special but no obvious problems

[Joseph Chambers · Rating 1 out of 5]

when people who don't like the irishman describe that movie, this is basically what they're describing. too long, self-indulgent, clunky, just kinda sucks.

[Drivetime.Fm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Q: In Animal Crackers, Groucho has a very strange set of monologues in which he steps out of the scene he’s in and addresses the viewer, saying “Pardon me, while I have a strange interlude.” This was meant to lampoon a hit play of the time. Who wrote the play Strange Interlude, and the better known Long Day's Journey into Night?