One the many reasons I love Theatre, and starting Acting

Let me preface this by saying the Ottawa Public Library is amazing, and if you want to see some good stuff or hear good music without adding to your clutter at home…go there! Get a card. This is why…..

Last night I was watching American Idol….I thought David Cook, and Carley Smithson were awesome by the way, when Tim yelled down “are you watching anything?” and I said “no”, I said guiltily as I kind of wanted to watch Dancing with the Stars…for lack of anything better on….TV is pretty much crap…but there I was watching it. SIGH

Anyways, I said “why, what do you want to watch?” “A Documentary on Eugene O’Neil I got from the library” Tim said. My first reaction was going to be, yuck, but I immediately thought, ya I would like to watch that. Then Tim brought it down and I realized it was a Ric Burns documentary on Eugene O’Neill and then I thought FANTASTIC!

If you don’t know who Ric or Ken Burns are….they are brothers for one thing, but both are amazing Documentary film makers. Ken Burns did the New York City Series and the Jazz Series…both are AWESOME - all of which we've gotten at the library. Anyways, I knew it would be good.

I had forgotten how interesting Eugene O’Neill’s life was, and how sad. He was haunted by ghosts. His mother had lost the brother he never known, Edmund, to the measles when Edmund was 2, before Eugene was born, which pretty much set the stage for the older brother James Jr.'s demise in life as a philanderer and alcoholic (read Moon for the Misbegotten, a play he wrote about his brother). When Eugene was born, his mother felt she was being punished and Eugene grew up with feelings of nothingness, and lonliness. His mother became a morphine addict, his father sold out to make a buck , after a promising potential career as an actor – well he did very very well as an actor playing the Count of Monte Cristo, but that was his sell out moment when he could have been a great Shakespearean actor and not be just known for that melodrama part of the Count. Eugene wandered amlessly, to South America, drinking, abadoning his wife and children, but ultimately becoming a celebrated American playwright in the process -- aren't all great artists tormented by their lives?

At any rate, I was watching this documentary and they had various actors doing scenes or monologues from plays like The Iceman Cometh, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night – two of his most famous works. Then I saw Al Pacino doing something from Iceman and both Tim and I said “Oh SHUT UP AL….god he pushes and trys too hard, he’s acting too hard and milking it” As an actor who has studied a lot , I can see it. But when Jason Robards did the same part in a clip from an old film version of the Broadway production…wow, magical.

Then the documentary went into his most famous play. Christopher Plummer did that speech from Long Day’s Journey into Night about how he sold out as an actor, what he could have been, the pain, etc, I wept (luckily Tim was sleeping). The language was so beautiful, and said by Plummer so simply I said “wow, that is why I love the theatre, and acting – what it can do to the audience if just done from the gut, simply – the beauty of language, how personal it can be”. Of course if you know O’Neill’s life you know this was an autobiographical play that nearly killed him to write. He actually sealed it at Random House and told them only to open it 25 yrs after his death and never have it performed. Both of which were ignored once he died….thank god. Anyway, it was stunning.

At one point Robert Sean Leonard (if you watch House he plays Wilson…he was also in Dead Poets Society when he was younger...I love him), he did this speech as Edmund in Long Day’s Journey…and the end went something like this..... "It was a great mistake my being born a man. I would have been much more successful as a sea-gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!" That was Eugene from the depth of his soul and said by Leonard, so simply, so grounded – painful, wonderful.

I love to act, and often it’s so hard to ground yourself to remember to listen, to “let it land”, but when it happens, or if you are a witness to such a performance, it can change your life – at least for that period in time. That is why I keep going back on stage, to catch that feeling, to be in the moment however hard it might be – even though it should be the simplest of things. Maybe that is selfish in a way, but it’s also the love of conveying the playwrights words to an audience, to share it with them. And when it is done right, affecting lives – touching people….a playwrights whose words can move people is a very special thing. It’s personal. And we as humans need to connect.

Eugene O’Neill was a most gifted and special artist. Thank you Mr. O’Neill for leaving us your words, and for inspiring us to convey your secret life to the world. And thank you Tim for having that library card....keep them movies and documentaries coming my friend.