The O'Neill

I posted this review on another site some time ago.  As I wind down new posts on this site, I thought I'd bring it over here, where it belongs.


The O'Neill: The Transformation of Modern Theater
 By Jeffrey Sweet
Yale University Press

 This coffee-table sized book is a solid history of an important institution in 20th century dramatic arts, even if it doesn't quite merit the grandiose subtitle (embarrassingly common these days, and I sympathize. The writer probably isn't responsible for it.)

 It's a 50th anniversary account of an institution--the Eugene O'Neill Center-- that began inventing itself in the late 1960s, in Waterford, Connecticut. The O'Neill began with the intention of nurturing new playwrights and new plays, which was not then the formal function of any other institution outside of a few university classes. This evolved into the National Playwrights Conference, held for a month every summer. Other programs were added over the years, and this book chronicles them.

 The proximity of New York and also of Yale Drama were crucial, as some of the best young actors in the country came up to be an intimate part of the process. (Two of the earliest, Michael Douglas and Meryl Streep, provide prefaces.) The O'Neill is young enough that many present at the creation, including its founder George White, were available to be interviewed for this volume.

 Sweet reports the story, and includes theatre lore to satisfy that appetite as well. Under the leadership of Lloyd Richards, the playwrights conference evolved into both a model and a unique experience. Many new playwrights thrived there, including its most famous alum, August Wilson.

 I attended two weeks of the 1991 conference for a Smithsonian Magazine article and saw how well it worked, and felt the personal bonds that it made and that nourished its success. For actors who went there every year (like John Seitz, who I interviewed and who is mentioned in this volume as having his ashes scattered there) it was a holy place, and participating was (as Seitz said to me) like "renewing my vows."

 Since this was the first of the O'Neill programs and the most influential, Sweet begins with it. He punctuates this narrative with chapters on other programs (National Theatre for the Deaf, the critics institute, etc.) though following the death of August Wilson with the Cabaret and Performance Conference is more than a little jarring.

 When I was there in 1991, the O'Neill and the Playwrights Conference specifically were already encountering financial problems, and a certain anxiety accompanied that summer's activities. There was a particularly strong feeling of appreciation for what it was, since it seemed it might not last.

 In fact the conference did undergo changes after Lloyd Richards left, many of them for reasons related to money. One year there wasn't enough to fund the open submission policy that was the heart if not the soul of the conference, but loud clamors of opposition to the change brought it back. Thanks to a fund set up by former O'Neill employee and playwright Wendy Wasserstein, and initially financed largely by Meryl Streep, the resources necessary to continue that process are safe, this book says, for a long time to come.

 But it does seem that the power has shifted towards the commercial theatre, particularly musical theatre, even within the O'Neill. This reflects a long trend in American theatre as much as the growth of university playwriting programs. Dramatists are now more likely to find creative homes as well as financial support in television, as was even the case among the 1991 playwrights I met and followed.

 I hope this book inspires more books and different books (with additional photographs that exist) that delve into the history and the magic of the O'Neill, and such extraordinary figures as Lloyd Richards, George White and Edith Oliver. My two weeks there were among the most memorable of my life. Just the theatrical stories told by participants and visitors in the Blue Genes cafe would fill volumes. In the meantime this book is a very good start.

A Great American Playwright

American Masters series recently broadcast a 90 minute documentary on playwright August Wilson and his unsurpassed 10-play cycle about African Americans in every decade of the 20th century. It can now be viewed on the program's website here.  There are some segments there also that didn't make the broadcast film.

The film a good introduction and summary for its length, occasionally powerful, especially when August is talking, though it maybe could have done with less of Christopher Rawson, the Pittsburgh critic.  There are lots of other stories out there, and much more to know about the plays.  There's more to be explored for future filmmakers and writers.

It does put August Wilson's accomplishments in some historical perspective, especially for younger generations. His ten play cycle is unique, providing good grounds for calling him the American Shakespeare.  He treated large themes with specific characters and situations, and he brought something to theatre that has been much lacking since: a voice.

 I just read part of a Dramatist magazine discussion of  "devised theatre."  Its confusion convinced me that "devised theatre" is just another new marketing category, like "creative nonfiction."  There's always been a place for experimental and highly collaborative work.  But devised theatre has become fashionable, possibly because it's easier, on every level.  It can make contributions, but it's not by any means the only way to make plays.

Above all what devised theatre often lacks is a voice.  That's what Lloyd Richards always said the O'Neill was looking for: not a polished play or commercial potential--but a voice.  August Wilson was the greatest example.

The O'Neill fostered a kind of collaboration, but the playwright decided.  Did that line an actor suggested belong in the play?  The playwright decided (and August decided yes at least once.)  Devised?  Take a look at all the scraps of paper he assembled, culled, made cohere.  The voices came to him, and he gave them theatrical voice.

Easily the best example of an excellent play that began in collaboration that I know of is Arthur Giron's Becoming Memories.  It began with his students telling stories.  But it ended with Giron writing--arranging, structuring, and giving the play a voice.  It's a wonderful theatrical experience.  I've seen at least three productions, all different, all luminous: one in Vancouver, BC; one at a university in Pittsburgh and the best one at a central Pennsylvania college with untrained student actors, directed by Margaret Kelso.

The film on August Wilson included a monologue from Gem of the Ocean, performed by Phylicia Rachad, who played this role of Aunt Ester in the Broadway production.  (I saw the Oregon Shakespeare production, which featured Greta Oglesby, who originated the role in pre-Broadway productions.) Rachad tells the story of how Aunt Ester came to be.  August heard his characters talking--sometimes he didn't know who they were when he wrote down what he heard.  Sometimes he did.  So he knew who Aunt Ester was--the ancestor of everyone in the last 9 plays--because other characters had talked about her. But she had never spoken.

This is true. I sat at a table after dinner at the O'Neill with a few others, listening to August tell stories for his next play, and one was about Aunt Ester--perhaps the first mention of her.

Then one day she spoke to him, Rachad said.  He scribbled down what she said on some napkins.  Then afraid he would lose them, he called his answering service and read the dialogue so it would be recorded.  Then afraid it hadn't all been recorded, he went to a pay phone and called his cell phone, and read it again as a recorded message.

August Wilson and I grew up at about the same time, some thirty miles apart.  But our lives were very different.  There were points in common--the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960, for instance--and I think I did recognize things in him that seemed common to western PA kids of our generation.

So I don't know if this business of mistrusting chance and technology with something valuable is a Pittsburgh thing, or just a character trait we had in common.  Because when I sat down to interview him for the first time--at a picnic table on the O'Neill grounds--I turned on my tape recorder.  And then I turned on my other tape recorder.

Does This Explain It All?

I'm fascinated with a dialogue in the March/April issue of the Dramatist, in which playwrights Marsha Norman ('Night, Mother, and--among other works, the book and for the musical The Secret Garden, seen recently at Ferndale Rep) and Christopher Durang (Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, which coincidentally was also on stage at the Rep recently, performed by the teen ensemble.)

They were talking about a playwrighting class they taught together at the Julliard School in New York. The students, described as a year or two out of college (grad students then?), numbered only four in the beginning, though the next year another class of four was added to the four who remained for a second year.

After describing how they came to teach the class together, the playwrights talked about their approach and how things worked out. Early on, Marsha Norman described the effect of the second year students on the first years': "They're also very good about helping the first year writers learn to talk in the Julliard way. We really do speak about plays in a very particular language, to the point that when they leave us they go out and start writers' groups and still kind of travel in this pack. Which is great, because what you need as a writer is to feel that you're in some kind of group that's going to help you. You can't make it if you're out there by yourself."

There is no denying the truth of those words I've put in bold. But the spectre of a pre-elite is pretty stark, as is the danger of groupthink. Going to "the right schools" is pretty much defined by the advantage those schools provide, not just in excellent teaching but in excellent connections. Theatre is susceptible to this, especially since it requires that people work together. Actors need producers need playwrights need directors need each other. Right now the road to success in American theatre (as well as TV and movies) often runs through Julliard, Yale Drama, Carnegie Mellon and no more than a half dozen other programs. (Here on the North Coast, it runs through Dell'Arte, and in design and technical areas, HSU. )

Those eight students are likely to be among the most serious and most talented, but they are also most likely to be from upper middle class big city families. Now they are being formed into packs, which will hurt them a little (if they come up against other gangs) but will help them much, much more.

There are other ways to form and become part of groups that support and advise each other. The young black playwright from HSU, John ADEkoje, is now plugged into a couple of strong support groups: Boston University, which has a production arm in the Boston Playwrights Theatre, and an informal but very involved group of black playwrights on the East Coast.

The summer Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center in Connecticut also was an institutional support mechanism, which re-generated and broadened itself every summer with a dozen or so new playwrights from various backgrounds and parts of the country. That's much less the case there now, and it's more of a pre-elite situation. O'Neill participants never forgot each other, or what they learned there: not only how to approach plays, but how to support each other.


This isn't all that interests me in this dialogue. Norman and Durang have interesting things to say about how they approach the class, which also suggest what playwrighting and theatre are like these days. The playwrights are encouraging, positive and supportive, but they try to get the student to focus on some practical matters. Norman suggests that "On page eight you have to tell the audience when they can go home," meaning that early in play, the audience should know what the question is that the play is asking, so when it is answered, the play is over.

"Rules" like this are distillations of experience, and I especially like suggestions that get writers (and others involved) to think about what they're doing from the audience perspective. August Wilson told me that one of the most useful pieces of advice he got at the O'Neill was to make sure that at the beginning of the play, the audience knows where the action is, and when. It's very simple, but it's smart, because if the audience is trying to figure that out, they miss what else is going on. And we all make sense of things based on time and place.

Something else that emerged from this class I learned at the O'Neill and elsewhere: it is very useful for a playwright to see the play read by actors, and to get actor feedback, because it is usually specific to their character, or to how that character might or might not say something. That's another major advantage of a place like Julliard, which attracts excellent acting students.

Another "tool" that Marsha Norman uses also suggests that not everything works for every play. To test the attraction or power of a play idea, she has everyone write five sentences about their play ("This is a play about___. It takes place___. The main character wants___. It begins when___. It ends when___. ) Then after each 5 sentence summary is read, students are asked which ones they remember (other than their own.) Norman says that out of 20, the most that are remembered is usually five. And then she asks, which would you pay to see? The money question, in both senses. Usually it's one, or two.

Two would be about right. It's the ten percent rule which governs the arts, and possibly a lot more. When he was director of the O'Neill, Lloyd Richards told me that it's uncannily consistent: of the plays that come in, 10% are passed on by the first readers. Then 10% of those are considered worthy by the judges. And so on.

But I wonder if this exercise doesn't have some pitfalls. I'd like to see added to the mix those five sentence descriptions of a few other plays, like say Waiting for Godot. It would be interesting to see if it makes the cut. (Maybe it's worth mentioning in this regard that Christopher Durang told me that the reason he stopped sending plays to the O'Neill was that he was afraid the first readers would screen him out and he'd be crushed.)

But this isn't to criticize their teaching techniques. I'm frankly in awe of the whole thing--of the attention and care they give, the discussions they have about every student's work. But I'm also very aware of the many of us who never got and never will get that kind of attention and support.

Running with the Wilson Gang

August Wilson's subject was the African American experience in the 20th century. Especially with his speech, "The Ground on Which I Stand," he was a foremost advocate for an independent black theatre. In practice however, his plays were produced mostly by non-black theatres. He was consciously working within an art form as it developed in Europe. He acknowledged its basis in Aristotle, both to mixed and black audiences.

As a person, he was perfectly at ease with white people, especially at the O'Neill, a temporary community concentrated on creating theatre. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had a fair amount in common. We both grew up in western Pennsylvania at around the same time, so we had the history, the cultural mileu and the sports of Pittsburgh as a common background. We both had gone to Catholic schools. There were things about him I could immediately identify as characteristic of Pittsburgh and western PA, and Catholic school.

It's possible we even shared some European genes: his father was German, mine was of Polish extraction, but there are Kowinskis in Germany and parts of Poland were either in Germany or largely German for part of their history. So who knows? But August's mother was black, and he grew up as a black person in black neighborhoods. And for all the commonalities, there are meaningful differences. Which play a part in our little adventure.

The O'Neill is centered at an old farm (where Eugene O'Neill played as a boy--and was once chased off by the owner with a shotgun) , close to the beach but driving distance from the nearest town of Waterford, Connecticut. One afternoon, somebody was taking one of the O'Neill's station wagons into town, and several people wanted to hitch a ride to take care of some town business. There were four of us in the car. I recall three: playwright Patricia Cobey, August Wilson and me. Several of us--maybe all four--were in need of cash from a bank cash machine. But in those days, all the machines weren't networked, and we wound up driving around to several banks to find machines that would work for all of us.

It was down to August and me who needed a cash machine, and it was getting close to 4 o'clock, when the banks closed. We finally found one small branch bank that had the right machine, but it was inside the bank. So just a minute before closing the four of us ran in together, and looked frantically around. Everybody in the bank--all the tellers and so on--were staring at us. It suddenly occured to me that we might look like a gang of bank robbers. I saw a nervous August Wilson explaining to a teller who we were and why we were there. I learned later that he'd had exactly the same thought at the same time.

It struck me as very funny, especially when the teller smiled and said, "We know who you are, Mr. Wilson." He looked confused for a moment-- it's required that everyone at the O'Neill wear their name tag every day, but it doesn't take long to get so used to it that you forget it's there. And August hadn't taken his off before we left. So there was little mystery why she knew who he was.

Driving back we compared notes and learned we'd had that same thought--that we were alarming the bank employees by acting like robbers. "The August Wilson Gang!" I said, laughing. But August wasn't laughing. It was not necessarily a laughing matter for a black man to be suspected of intending to rob a bank. Rationally he realized there wasn't much risk, but again, rationality doesn't always pertain when race is involved in America. It was an object lesson in that reality, running with the Wilson Gang that day.

Feingold was the first to spot "Ma Rainey" in the
submissions, and Lloyd Richards selected it. They're
under a signature tree at the O'Neill.

I Call Him August

It's a journalistic convention to refer to people by their last names, and as an elder of accomplishment and authority, he certainly ought to be called "Mr." Plus there is the unfortunate precedent of black men being called by their first names only, another way of calling them "boy."

But Mr. August Wilson is always going to be August to me, because that's how I knew him. It's what I called him and what others we knew in common called him. And more than anything now, it expresses how I feel about this great playwright and teacher, his works and his life. It's all personal to me. Not personal only, but certainly that.

I met August Wilson in 1991 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut. I was there to write a magazine piece, and he was one of my first interviews. It was the O'Neill and its artistic director, Lloyd Richards, who pulled an unfinished Ma Rainey's Black Bottom out of the submissions pile, and brought August to the summer conference where a dozen or so plays went through the "O'Neill process," which ended up with a bare-bones production. Not only did Lloyd Richards then become its director at Yale and forward to Broadway, but August returned with his next several plays in subsequent summers. By all accounts, he flourished in this process, arriving as a quietly suspicious but willing participant and becoming a confident enthusiast. It was nearly a decade later, and he was back at the O'Neill for the first time not as a playwright but as a dramaturg, an advisor on the text of someone else's play. (He returned as dramaturg at least once more, and as playwright a couple of more times, including in 2002 with Gem of the Ocean.)

By the end of the interview we had begun to explore what we had in common, like the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. August was a year older, and in many ways his neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh was farther away than the 35 miles to the town where I grew up, but we did have a number of common points of reference.

The conference summer lasts a month, and that year I was there for two weeks of it. So I spent a fair amount of time with and around August, talking and listening (mostly) over communal meals in the dining hall, over tons of coffee and on one occasion, a few too many beers. August was dramaturg to the playwright I was principally following, but the atmosphere at the O'Neill was so open and embracing that it was only natural to have that much daily contact. We even had a kind of adventure, which I'll describe later.

One evening as a few of us at our table lingered after dinner, August spontaneously launched into the stories his characters were telling him. That's when I first heard of Aunt Ester. Later I learned that he often does this, testing out ideas and stories for the play he's working on. He was a mesmerizing storyteller in person as well as on the page and the stage.

Even though I was not strictly speaking part of the process at the O'Neill, I discovered that I was part of that summer's community (and one of the playwrights volunteered that my presence was positive.) The thing about the O'Neill is that once the bond of that summer is formed, it remains. So whenever I saw August again, whatever the circumstances, I was greeted warmly, and he talked to me as a friend. Once was at the Public Theatre in Pittsburgh, when he was preparing the first professional production of Jitney.

The Public was another node in the network that began for me at the O'Neill, and involved others who directed and acted in his plays, and brought their own work as playwrights to Pittsburgh. August not only provided opportunities for African American theatre artists, but those who worked with him seemed to carry his spirit with them. He was always a presence.

I'm not making any great claims for this limited relationship. But it was enough for me to feel personal affection as well as admiration, and to feel his loss in a personal way. These feelings can't ever be detached from the feelings evoked by seeing or reading his plays. And that's why I'm comfortable only calling him August.

My account of that summer's conference, including my Smithsonian article, is here. I was thrilled to discover in the course of research that I'm quoted about the O'Neill from this article, in a book, "The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson" by Sandra G. Shannon, I wrote more about him at the time of his death and various memorials in 2005 , here.

First Principles

Lloyd Richards' Fading Dream


In years past, this would be the season that playwrights would be waiting to hear whether they had been selected to participate in the summer National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Waterford, Conn. To say this is a month-long experience of crafting new plays and discovering new playwrights with the participation of of some of America's best theatre artists only hints at the magic that happened there. That used to happen there.

When I spent a couple of weeks there in 1991, on assignment to Smithsonian Magazine (an expanded version of my article is on the web here), there was some worry about the conference's future. But as long as the late Lloyd Richards was in charge, it was one of the most important places in American theatre, both in the nurturing of new writing (writers I met there have since become major voices in TV and film as well as regional and New York theatre) and in reaffirming the best ideals and practices of American theatre. One of the many New York actors who returned there every year described it as "renewing my vows."

But for the past few years I've watched from afar as the summer conference has deteriorated. They've had a couple of artistic directors since Richards' retired, at least one of them leaving under a cloud. Last spring-- a few months before Lloyd Richards died--the new artistic director, 31 year old Wendy Goldberg, gave an interview in American Theatre. Her quotes, and some statements in the story which seem to be based on impressions and information the writer got from her, suggests how far the O'Neill has strayed, and for my money, fallen. An article in the latest issue of The Dramatist suggests the situation is even worse.

For many years, Lloyd Richards was the head of Yale Drama and artistic director of the O''Neill's playwright conference. Richards directed the first New York production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in 1957, arguably the first authentic portrayal of African American life on the American stage. But in his years of directing and discovering and nurturing playwrights of all races, his most important find was August Wilson, who created the richest and most sustained expression of African American life in the twentieth century, and in doing so, became a great American playwright. Richards discovered him when, after several years of his entries being rejected, August Wilson sent Ma Rainey's Black Bottom to the O'Neill.

But August Wilson wasn't the only discovery. The fledgling playwrights who spent July at the O'Neill included Wendy Wasserstein, John Guare, Christopher Durang, David Henry Hwang, Lee Blessing, Charles Fuller and Lanford Wilson. For two weeks, a playwright's script was the center of attention by a director, a dramaturg, a designer--all accomplished professionals--and professional actors, which might well include Obie, Tony or even Oscar winners. Writers could rewrite as much or as little as they wanted, and everyone was ready and eager to make changes, even between the two performances each play received. Everyone in the summer community attended every play, and everyone was invited to carefully organized critiques a day or so later.

Lloyd Richards was the heart and soul of the O'Neill, so important to many American playwrights. He transformed it into a community concentrating on honing and freeing new voices in theatre. He was utterly respected by everyone, for his discipline and gentleness, his rigor and humor, his attentiveness to detail and insistence on communicating the big picture, so everyone knew and shared the same vision of the O'Neill process.

For four decades, the O'Neill had a policy of open submissions: anybody could send a script and it would be considered. Without such a policy, it's doubtful that many if not most of the new voices the O'Neill discovered and nurtured would have had a chance, and that seems especially true for its most important discovery: August Wilson.

A few years ago, the new regime tried to change that, and limit submissions to pre-selected playwrights. There was a hue and cry and unsolicited scripts were again considered, though in a narrower time frame, and with conditions that made entering a pretty pricey proposition. Goldberg reinstated open submissions, and though I don't know the exact rules and regs this year, statements that she makes in the interview suggest the situation hasn't really returned to what it was."We've had 800 submissions this year, a record amount of plays," Goldberg is quoted as saying.

First of all, unless she is judging them by weight, she probably meant "a record number of plays." But even that is simply false, and by quite a lot. There were some 1500 scripts submitted for the 1991 conference, according to Lloyd Richards, and confirmed by others that summer.

There were also 12 playwrights chosen for 1991, although I believe they had previously hosted 14, but budget shortfalls forced both fewer playwrights and an altered schedule--the pre-conference in the spring, during which the playwrights spend a couple of days simply each reading their plays aloud, had to be folded into the summer conference.

But the conference in 2006 hosted but eight playwrights, and one of them did not emerge from the regular submissions process. Moreover, this play was "workshopped" before a scheduled production in Atlanta, something that Richards' resisted. He didn't want the O'Neill to become a venue tied to specific productions elsewhere.

The Dramatist article (by Steven Ginsberg) shows that the O'Neill has become even more restrictive for this summer. He writes that of the eight spots in 2007, two are pre-determined, one to the Alliance Theater and another to the Abbey Theater in Dublin. A third is devoted to a Theater for Youth Project, and a fourth "is taken by an established playwright who was likely 'not in competition'". Ginsberg conjectures this year one of these is "awarded to a playwright wth commissions from several major theatres" and another to a new play by the playwright who authored the Youth Project play. He reckons that unsolicted submissions are actually vying for two spots.

In the Richards era, it wasn't unusual for playwrights who had been at the conference before to return with a new play. In fact, that was part of the culture of the place--and the new playwrights learned from the O'Neill veterans. But the year I visited at least half of the playwrights were new to the O'Neill, and several didn't have much in the way of significant productions in their resumes. (Ginsberg's article is ostensibly about whether it is worth it to unproduced playwrights to pay the fees to enter contests, of which the O'Neill has traditionally been the gold standard. He mentions that the O'Neill's fee is relatively high, at $35. It used to be much less. But what he doesn't mention is that the O'Neill, which used to require only one copy of the script, requires several bound copies now--a few years ago it was 5--which could easily push the cost of submitting a script to more than $100.)

In the Richards era, the O'Neill was about the playwright and the play, and nothing else. That clearly is no longer true. Goldberg had done away with the system Richards instituted (and which other places copied) of simple, modular sets and basic production values, and script-in-hand performance, so that playwrights could change things right up to the minute of production, based on what they learned in their creative collaboration with all the others involved.

In defending the use of more elaborate sets and production values for some plays, Goldberg says that "each play is different" which is a truism but also signifies the distinct possibility that some plays are going to be favored in light of imminent productions elsewhere. In fact, before Richards took over and even early in his tenure, there were such elaborate productions. He put a stop to them because of all the chaos they caused. Being so close to New York, the O'Neill always had the pressure of New York producers coming up to shop for new plays, and the more elaborate productions gave some plays an unfair advantage, and the competition and commercialism threatened to swamp the festival as a place to help playwrights find their voices and make the best scripts possible. So he went to the strict rules of simple sets, and the same basic production values for all plays.

The critique system Richards set up is also slandered in the article, as some sort of vicious punishment visited upon the victimized playwright. I don't know what they were like in later years, but when I was there, Richards himself made sure these sessions were positive. He spoke before every one of them, about their purpose and how they fit into the larger purpose of the conference.

Through design and through his presence, authority and leadership, Lloyd Richards created a sense of the process as almost sacred, as touching the foundations of theatre and theatrical creativity and collaboration. That's why the actor I met, who did a lot of TV playing cops and criminals (an awful lot of O'Neill actors show up in episodes of Law & Order, a series co-created by an O'Neill playwright) described his participation as "renewing my vows." The O'Neill was so important to so many people in the theatre, and so treasured, because it was a kind of temporary monastery (with a lot of un-monklike--or nunlike--behavior, to be sure) for the kind of pure creative process that the theatre needs. If it has succumbed to whatever pressures and necessities, or to poor judgment, then theatre will suffer for it, and so will playwrights.

While a new generation of administrators has every right to their own vision, and certainly a responsibility to respond to today's realities, they might try respecting what made the O'Neill a living legend in world theatre. And the people who created it.