Editor’s Foreword

As I write this foreword for the Eugene O'Neill Review, I cannot help but feel a little like Jean from August Strindberg's Miss Julie, a reference that O'Neill would likely appreciate. The boots—er, shoes—of Frederick Wilkins, Zander Brietzke, William Davies King, Kurt Eisen, and Alexander Pettit loom large in my imagination as the past editors of EOR—a challenge to which I hope I rise during my editorship. My thanks to those in the O'Neill Society who have entrusted me with this responsibility. Hopefully, this won't turn out like a Strindberg drama!This issue begins with an intriguing Lost & Found piece by Drew Eisenhauer, which features two letters from O'Neill to Djuna Barnes (in 1924 and 1931) that reveal much about the changing fortunes of these former Provincetown Players and O'Neill's not always generous response to his former compatriots as his success grew during the 1920–30s. Eisenhauer's observations about Barnes's Ann Portuguise and O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms suggest intriguing possibilities for future research.The two articles featured in this issue corroborate the international appeal of O'Neill's plays. The first comes from China, with Shuying Chen's intriguing history of the adaptation of Beyond the Horizon by Li Qinghua in 1941. Retitled Yaowang (Look into the Distance), Beyond the Horizon met the remarkable moment during China's War of Resistance against Japan (1937–45), Chen contends, by galvanizing public sentiment and military volunteers to defend China. The second comes from Iran, with Mojtaba Jeihouni's reading of The Hairy Ape. Jeihouni examines Yank's rebellion against the biopolitical society theorized by Michel Foucault and opens up intriguing ways of examining the ambition and failure of rebellion as represented in The Hairy Ape, a reading that brings welcome theoretical rigor to criticism on this play.For the Practitioner's Colloquium, we offer two pieces, the first of which is a memorial for the passing of Glenda Jackson in the summer of 2023. Sheila Hickey Garvey dusted off a decades-old interview of Jackson originally conducted not long after Jackson's triumphant performance of Nina Leeds in Strange Interlude in 1985—a previously unpublished interview that is remarkable for Jackson's acting knowledge and engaging wit. The second is the beginning of what I hope will be a series of interviews with contemporary playwrights about the influence of O'Neill. Bess Rowen interviews Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, MacArthur Fellow and two-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, about his creative engagement with O'Neill, an interview that begins with The Emperor Jones and ranges widely across O'Neill's legacy.David Palmer continues his fabulous work with Used Books by returning to Sophus Keith Winther's Eugene O'Neill: A Critical Study, originally published in 1934, then expanded in 1961. Palmer thoughtfully elucidates Winther's examination of O'Neill's tragic vision in terms of Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, and other influences in ways that reveal the continued relevance of Winther's estimation of O'Neill's plays.Finally, Zander Brietzke and Bess Rowen have been busy with book and performance reviews, respectively. Dorothy Chansky leads off the book reviews with an assessment of Beth Wynstra's compelling study of O'Neill's representation of marriage. Shouhua Qi addresses Zhong Yi's book on translations of O'Neill's plays in China (a nice complement to Chen's article) while Bennet Schaber reviews Joe Cleary's book on modernism, empire, and literature, which includes an intriguing chapter on O'Neill. Performance reviews by Roena Haynie and Charles Reitz, Paul Meltzer, David Palmer, and Felicia Hardison Londré demonstrate the vitality of O'Neill's plays on stage. A particularly welcome contribution comes from Alex Pettit, who reviews Dave King's Into Night: A Day at Tao House, which we saw in Boston.I want to thank Alex Pettit for helping me negotiate the considerable learning curve for this position by answering my questions with patience, expertise, and humor. Thanks, too, to our contributors and readers who continue to explore the legacy of Eugene O'Neill.