The Emperor Jones

The Emperor Jones
Poster for a 1937 Federal Theater Project production
Written by	Eugene O'Neill
Date premiered	1 November 1920
Place premiered	Neighborhood Playhouse New York City, New York
Original language	English
Subject	A Black porter attains power in the West Indies by exploiting the superstitions and ignorance of an island's residents.
Genre	Comedy
Setting	A West Indian island not yet self-determined, but for the moment, an empire.
IBDB profile

Poster for a 1937 Federal Theater Project production of The Emperor Jones.

The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist, Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor. The play recounts his story in flashbacks as Brutus makes his way through the forest in an attempt to escape former subjects who have rebelled against him.

The play displays an uneasy mix of expressionism and realism, which is also characteristic of several other O'Neill plays, including The Hairy Ape. It was O'Neill's first play to receive great critical acclaim and box office success, and the one that launched his career.

Characters

• Brutus Jones
• Smithers
• JeffUndine
• Dolly
• Lem

Summary

The play is divided into eight scenes. Scenes 2 through 7 are from the point of view of Jones, and no other character speaks. The first and last scenes feature a character named Smithers, a white trader who appears to be part of illegal activities. In the first scene, Smithers is told about the rebellion by an old woman, and then has a lengthy conversation with Jones. In the last scene, Smithers converses with Lem, the leader of the rebellion. Smithers has mixed feelings about Jones, though he generally has more respect for Jones than for the rebels. During this scene, Jones is killed by a silver bullet, which was the only way that the rebels believed Jones could be killed, and the way in which Jones planned to kill himself if he was captured.

Productions

1920 Premiere

The Emperor Jones first staged on 1 November 1920 by The Provincetown Players at the Playwright's Theater in New York City.^[1] Charles Sidney Gilpin was the first actor to play the role of Brutus Jones on stage on O'Neill said later that he was the only actor who had played an O'Neill character to O'Neill's full satisfaction. They did have some conflict over Gilpin’s tendency to change a few words as he acted. This production was very successful and it helped make O'Neill's reputation. The little Provincetown theater was too small to cope with audience demand for tickets, and the play was transferred to another theater. It ran for 204 performances and was hugely popular.

The 1924 Revival

Due to disagreements with O'Neill, another actor was chosen for the main role in the London production. In the 1924 revival, singer-actor Paul Robeson played the lead. Robeson received excellent reviews. After appearing in the 1928 London production of the musical Show Boat, he went on to worldwide fame as one of the great black artists of the twentieth century. Gilpin has been forgotten by modern audiences, but the fame of Robeson has increased with the years.

Federal Theatre Project

The Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration launched several productions of the play in cities across the United States, including a production with marionettes in Los Angeles in 1938.^[2]

Recent

The Wooster Group mounted a production of the play in 2007 for the Philadelphia LiveArts Festival which played to sold-out audiences every night of its run. Along with its post-dramatic aesthetics, this staging was notable in that the actor playing the part of Jones, Kate Valk, was female, white, and performed in black face.

The play ran for 33 performances at The National Theatre directed by Thea Sharrock starring Paterson Joseph in the lead.

New York's Irish Repertory Theatre staged a 2009 revival.

Adaptations

The play was adapted for a 1933 feature film directed by Dudley Murphy and starring Paul Robeson.

Louis Gruenberg wrote an opera based on the play, which was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1933. Baritone Lawrence Tibbett sang the title role, performing in blackface. Paul Robeson's 1936 film Song of Freedom features a scene from the opera with Robeson singing the role of Jones. This has sometimes resulted in a confusion that the 1933 film of O'Neill's play is a film of the opera.

Ossie Davis starred in a television adaptation in 1955. British television company ATV produced its own adaptation for the Armchair Theatre series. It starred African-American actor Kenneth Spencer, directed by Ted Kotcheff and scripted by Terry Southern; it screened in the UK in March 1958.^[3]

Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote a ballet based on the play, that was commissioned by The Empire Music Festival of New York, and danced by José Limón's company.

An experimental video by Christopher Kondek and Elizabeth LeCompte showcases the production of the play by the New York-based performance troupe The Wooster Group, starring Kate Valk and Willem Dafoe.

References

1. ^ http://www.eoneill.com/reviews/jones_frank.htm
2. ^ "Federal Theatre (Memory)". American Treasures of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress. 2008. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm017.html. Retrieved 2009-02-16. 
3. ^ Hill, Lee (2001). A Grand Guy: The Life and Art of Terry Southern. London: Bloomsbury. pp. pp.81-83. ISBN 0747547335. 

Further reading

• O'Neill, Eugene (1920). The Emperor Jones (First ed.). New York: Random House. OCLC 29238831. http://www.eoneill.com/texts/jones/contents.htm. 

External links

• The Emperor Jones at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Emperor Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Discussion of Emperor Jones from Travus Bogard's book Contours in Time, on eoneill.