Mourning Becomes Electra

Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy by Eugene O'Neill. [Guild Theatre, 157 perf.] In The Homecoming, the New England wife Christine Mannon (Alla Nazimova) has been having an affair with Captain Adam Brant (Thomas Chalmers) while her husband, Brigadier‐General Ezra Mannon (Lee Baker), is away fighting in the Civil War. Christine's daughter, Lavinia (Alice Brady), who hates her mother and secretly loves Brant, suspects the truth and wheedles a confession from him. The Mannons' son, Orin (Earle Larimore), has always been more favored by his mother and is berated by the General when he returns home. This resentment leads Christine to poison her husband and make the death look natural. But Lavinia discovers the poison and pleads to her beloved dead father, “Don't leave me alone! Come back to me! Tell me what to do!” In The Hunted, Lavinia tells Orin what has happened and convinces her brother that they must be revenged on their mother. They follow Christine to a rendezvous she has with Brant, and when Christine departs, Orin kills Brant. Christine, on learning of Brant's death, commits suicide. The tale concludes with The Haunted in which Orin is plagued with a growing sense of guilt and has come to blame himself for all the family deaths. Indeed, he has come to suspect that the love he had for his mother was not entirely natural and that it has been transferred to his sister. Unable to conciliate the furies that hound him, he kills himself. Lavinia once again must don her mourning. She orders the house shut up, knowing she will live there alone for the rest of her life. “It takes the Mannons to punish themselves for being born,” she concludes. The Theatre Guild performed the five‐hour resetting of the classic Oresteia in a single evening, with a dinner intermission between the first and second plays. Robert Benchley, writing in The New Yorker, called it “a hundred times better than Electra because O'Neill has a God‐given inheritance of melodramatic sense.” It was revived in 1971 by the American Shakespeare Festival and in 1972 by the Circle in the Square.

Eugene O’neill 1931

Mourning Becomes Electra is considered O’Neill’s most ambitious work. In the play, he adapts the Greek tragic myth Oresteia to nineteenth-century New England. Generally, critics praised the play as one of O’Neill’s best. Even though performances ran almost six hours long, audiences seemed to agree; it ran for 150 performances.

Like Oresteia, O’Neill’s play features themes of fate, revenge, hubris, adultery, and honor. Many critics note that the play reflects his recurring concerns about the unsuccessful struggle of an individual to escape a tragic fate and the dark nature of human existence. The play is structured as a trilogy, with three different plays — The Homecoming, The Hunted, The Haunted — comprising the story.

For the film, see Mourning Becomes Electra (film).

Mourning Becomes Electra
1931 Liveright first edition cover
Written by	Eugene O'Neill
Date premiered	26 October 1931
Place premiered	Guild Theatre New York City
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	1865, New England
IBDB profile
IOBDB profile

Mourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing in March 1932. In May 1932, it was revived at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre),^[1] and in 1972 at the Circle in the Square Theatre.^[1]

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Adaptations 3 Awards and nominations 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

Plot summary

Main characters

• Captain Adam Brant
• Lavinia Mannon
• Christine Mannon
• Brigadier General Ezra Mannon
• Orin Mannon
• Captain Peter Niles
• Hazel Niles
• Amos Ames - A middle-aged carpenter, Amos and his wife Louisa form part of the chorus in Homecoming and The Haunted
• Louisa Ames - Louisa is the wife of Amos. She appears as part of the chorus of local people in Homecoming and has a taste for vicious gossip.
• Doctor Joseph Blake

The story is an update of the Greek myth of Orestes to the family of a Northern general in the American Civil War. Agamemnon is now General Ezra Mannon, Clytemnestra is his second wife Christine, Orestes is his son Orin, and Electra is his daughter Lavinia. As an updated Greek tragedy, the play features murder, adultery, incestuous love and revenge, and even a group of townspeople who function as a kind of Greek chorus. Though fate alone guides characters' actions in Greek tragedies, O'Neill's characters have motivations grounded in 1930s-era psychological theory as well. The play can easily be read from a Freudian perspective, paying attention to various characters' Oedipus complexes and Electra complexes.

Mourning Becomes Electra is divided into three plays with themes corresponding to The Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. In order, the three plays are titled Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. However, these plays are normally not produced individually, but only as part of the larger trilogy. Each of these plays contain four to five acts, and so Mourning Becomes Electra is extraordinarily lengthy for a drama. In production, it is often cut down. Also, because of the large cast size, it is not performed as often as some of O'Neill's other major plays.

Adaptations

Main article: Mourning Becomes Electra (film)

In 1947 the play was adapted for film by Dudley Nichols, starring Rosalind Russell, Michael Redgrave, Raymond Massey, Katina Paxinou, Leo Genn and Kirk Douglas. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Michael Redgrave) and Best Actress in a Leading Role (Rosalind Russell). There was also a 1978 television miniseries production that aired on PBS and that starred Joan Hackett and Roberta Maxwell.

In 1967, the Metropolitan Opera gave the world premiere of an operatic version, composed by Martin David Levy to the libretto of William Henry Butler. Both film and opera retain O'Neill's title.

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 2004 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Mourning Becomes Electra at the Internet Broadway Database

Further reading

• O'Neill, Eugene (1931). Mourning Becomes Electra: A Trilogy (First edition ed.). New York: Liveright. OCLC 7257106. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mourning Becomes Electra

• Mourning Becomes Electra at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mourning Becomes Electra at the Internet off-Broadway Database

v • d • e Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival Pericles (1991) · Hedda Gabler (1992) · An Inspector Calls (1993) · Machinal (1994) · As You Like It (1995) · Twelfth Night / Uncle Vanya (2003) · Mourning Becomes Electra (2004) · Hamlet (2005) · Hedda Gabler (2006) · The Crucible (2007) · Saint Joan (2008)

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