Magnum Opus
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The Cycle Plays of Eugene O’Neill
Zander Brietzke
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Format: HC - Paper over BoardPrice: $65.00
An original and provocative analysis of Eugene O'Neill's unfinished cycle play project
From 1935 to 1939, Eugene O’Neill worked on a series of plays that would trace the history of an American family through several generations. He completed just two of the proposed eleven plays—A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions—which Zander Brietzke argues represent the core of the entire cycle. Combining archival research, literary analysis, and theatrical imagination, Magnum Opus invites an audience to see this unusual and exciting epic as a historical drama of our time.
Zander Brietzke is the author of The Aesthetics of Failure, American Drama in the Age of Film, and Action and Consequence in Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg. A former president of the Eugene O’Neill Society, he taught modern and contemporary drama at Columbia University.
“This dramaturgical excavation and reassessment of O’Neill’s cycle explores a literary mystery, with Brietzke as the extremely qualified detective. He pairs rigorous scholarly analysis with his artistic understanding as a theatremaker. It’s a joy to follow the breadcrumbs with him. This book adds significantly to the field of O’Neill scholarship and offers new inroads for practitioners bringing O’Neill to the stage.” —Ilana M. Brownstein, Director of New Work, Company One Theatre
Publication Date: April 20, 2021
11 b/w illus.
