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Eugene O’Neill’s first-ever play is set to make its U.S. debut in the new year, following its inaugural production in Danville’s Irish sister city during its rendition of the annual festival in the late playwright’s name.
The upcoming production at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley is set to feature two of the original cast members from this year’s run in New Ross, Ireland during the city’s own celebration of the renowned playwright who lived in Danville at the end of his career – but otherwise the cast, and overall experience, are set to be entirely new.
“Knowing that it was O’Neill’s first play and that it was written in a style his actor father would be familiar with got me thinking about how the play represented more than the tale of two prospectors,” Eric Fraisher Hayes, artistic director for the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, said in an announcement from the foundation on Dec. 5. “In adapting it, telling the backstage story, I sought to broaden the play into a personal story about the relationship between a father and son and their shared passion for theatre.”
O’Neill’s first play, “A Wife for Life”, made its stage debut more than 100 years after it was written in 1913, launching the playwright’s prolific career that spanned decades and included years of life and work in Danville from 1937 to 1944.
The later part of that career is also set to be showcased in Danville this January, with his final one-act play “Hughie” set to round out the offering of O’Neill’s “First and Last Act” in the second week of the new year.
Hayes told DanvilleSanRamon that in planning the foundation’s programming for the coming year, he had been drawn to the idea of bringing “A Wife for Life” to the smaller January production following the ambitious “Mourning Becomes Electra” run during the local Eugene O’Neill Festival in September.
While a majority of the work on his end was already completed with the adaptation of the material in preparation for its stage debut, a challenge remained as to how to fill out the programming for a full night of theater – until a conversation with Cynthia Lagodzinski, who will be directing “Hughie” in the upcoming production.
“She had mentioned that she had been working on a production, and that there was an actor who was very interested in doing the play ‘Hughie,'” Hayes said.
From there, the vision for “First and Last Act” quickly took shape, as did the work to connect the threads between O’Neill’s first play and his final one-act play.
“Hughie” was initially meant to be part of a series, Hayes said, of “short plays in which someone would be talking about someone who they lost.”
“In a sense, it was a series of plays about people processing grief,” Hayes said.
This is in contrast to O’Neill’s early works, including “A Wife for Life”, with Hayes suggesting that the early plays were a matter of O’Neill beginning to learn his craft.
“The one-acts at the start of his career, I think, are kind of experiments in writing,” Hayes said. “I think he’s still trying to teach himself to write, but they tend to be full of topical issues.”
Many of the issues explored in this period of O’Neill’s career remain topical today, including abortion, suicide, class struggles and the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“His later plays tend to be more of a personal nature, so it’s more wrestling with the personal,” Hayes said.
The premise of “First and Last Act” is already drawing audiences ahead of its run, with the Jan. 11 performance – which includes a post-show discussion – marking the foundation’s first sellout of the new year.
Tickets are still available for the production’s Friday night performance on Jan. 10 and its Sunday matinee on Jan. 12. More information is available at eugeneoneill.org.
