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Danville's Haunted Hills
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By John Barry, Eugene O'Neill Foundation Board Member
The Las Trampas Hills towering over Danville were once haunted. Or rather, they were inhabited for several years by Eugene O’Neill, the “haunted poet” of the American theatre. O’Neill lived from 1937 to 1944 with his wife Carlotta at Tao House, now the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site, managed by the National Park Service in partnership with the Danville-based Eugene O’Neill Foundation.
This year marks the 20th Eugene O’Neill Festival, put on by the foundation. And the theme of this year’s Festival is “Haunted Poets.” But O’Neill was not the only haunted poet. (More on another in just a bit.)
O’Neill was a member of a family that did not put the “fun” in dysfunctional. The playwright had major artistic differences with his father, James, an Irish immigrant actor who made a name for himself in stock melodramas. His son, on the other hand, wanted to create plays that broke the melodrama mold and explored, in a contemporary vernacular, the inner recesses and hidden passions and desires of his characters.
And there were plenty of both in his family. Eugene blamed his father for an itinerant life necessitated by constant moving around while James was on tour and for the impact this had on the family. His brother, Jamie, drank himself to death at age 45 (O’Neill himself had a fondness for the bottle in his early years). And his mother was a morphine addict (see above).
Finally, in 1941, O’Neill exorcised some of his family demons by writing his greatest work, the semi-autobiographical "Long Day’s Journey Into Night", in which the Tyrone family stands in for the O’Neills. He composed this masterpiece in his study at Tao House. "Journey" headlines this year’s festival and will be presented Sept. 14–29 in the Old Barn, just a few steps from the playwright’s one-time residence.
The Cast of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”.
Photo by John Carter.
Another Haunted Poet
Tennessee Williams’s "The Glass Menagerie" (presented Aug. 30–Sept. 15 at the Village Theatre) parallels Journey in several respects. "Menagerie’s" Amanda Wingfield is not a drug addict, but she is a faded “southern belle” trapped in the past and unable to cope with the mentally fragile state of her daughter, Laura. Both are financially dependent on Laura’s brother, Tom. This young man longs to be a poet but feels burdened and hemmed in by family obligations. His greatest desire is to escape this stifling environment.
Williams coined the term “memory play” to describe "Menagerie", which—along with "Journey"—was written in the early 1940s. O’Neill’s masterwork could be described as a memory play, bringing to light as it does long-buried and painful family memories.
A subsidiary character in "Journey", Cathleen, becomes the main character in a Downton Abbey–like drama, titled "The Second Girl" (presented Aug. 24–25 at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley), that imagines observations of a Tyrone-family servant, a recent Irish immigrant. This follow-on to "Journey" was written by Ronan Noone—originally from Ireland—and now living in Boston. And it rounds out the “trifecta” of plays presented at the 20th Annual Eugene O’Neill Festival. The Festival started on August 24 and features several other events through September.
Danville Is Alive with the Sound of Music
Clodagh Kinsella, Irish singer performing at The Village Theatre.
Another Festival event of note is a Sept. 5 concert of Airs and Arias by noted Irish soprano Clodagh Kinsella, accompanied by Irish pianist Keith Stears. A graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, with first class honors in Vocal Studies, Kinsella is also a multi-instrumentalist, starting on violin at age 5 and piano at age 8, who will sing Irish favorites such as "Danny Boy", "The Kerry Dance", "The Tinker’s Daughter", and "The Leprechaun", and home favorites "Shenandoah" and "America the Beautiful". Stears has received numerous prizes and awards, including the coveted Lucien and Maura Teissier Scholarship Award, a competition of pianists studying at the RIAM. The concert is presented at the Village Theatre.
Keith Stears, Irish pianist performing at The Village Theatre.
For details about the plays, the concert, and other Festival events, including a ranger-led hike to Tao House and a history walk of downtown Danville, please visit www.eugeneoneill.org. Tickets can be purchased at www.villagetheatreshows.com.
