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O'Neill's plays have attracted some of world's top actors to perform in them on Broadway. They include Gabriel Byrne (A Touch of the Poet, A Moon for the Misbegotten), Willem Defoe (The Hairy Ape), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Long Day's Journey Into Night), Paul Giamatti (The Iceman Cometh), Robert Sean Leonard (Long Day's Journey), Liam Neeson (Anna Christie), Al Pacino (Hughie), Vanessa Redgrave (Long Day's Journey) and Natasha Richardson (Anna Christie) and Kevin Spacey (Long Day's Journey, The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for the Misbegotten).
His plays offer these actors the opportunity for the purest expression of their art. His plays are thick with theatrical weight, requiring great flexibility.
Founded in 2003, the Independent Artist Track has helped learn to help actors find the flexibility essential to developing the full range of their talents.
Before working on an O'Neill monologue, IA first work on a contemporary and then a classical monologue with similar emotional values.
By moving between contemporary and classical styles, the actor is freed to integrate into the world of the play. As a result the emotional palate is enriched for work on O'Neill.
Through this process the gravity of O'Neill's plays can work for the actor, rather than against him. The actor learns that he needn't become imprisoned by the weight of O'Neill's plays but rather is supported by it.
Here's a story that was told to me on separate occasions by both Kevin Spacey and Gabriel Byrne.
Kevin Spacey, after his run of The Iceman Cometh offered Gabriel Byrne, who was in rehearsal for A Moon for the Misbegotten, the following advice:
Let O'Neill carry you.
Mr. Byrne tells the story as if he is offering spiritual advice. Mr. Spacey tells it as if he is telling a joke. But if you do not allow yourself to be carried by O'Neill, the result is that O'Neill's dark humor is lost as the actor finds himself at battle with the playwright.
Once alive in O'Neill, actors needn't 'play O'Neill' as he will inevitably 'play' them - if they can inhabit his shadowy world playfully.
Working on O'Neill monologues in the IA Track opens a world of possibilities for the stage actor that translates to other media as well.
"Working with Stephen on O'Neill's plays on stage launched my career. Those experiences also helped my film and television work, which are my bread and butter. Actually, my first NY Times review was for an O'Neill play called Bread and Butter. Television helps me support my habit: playing O'Neill."
O'Neill Performances on Stage: Long Day's Journey Into Night, Bread and Butter, Abortion, Bound East for Cardiff, The Web, A Wife for a Life, The Fog. TV: America's Prince (JFK Jr.), Misguided, Northshore, Mad Men, Valentine. Film: Billy (w/Martin Landau)
For more on acting O'Neill read the Studio's Artistic Statement.
For information on the Independent Artist Track please send an email to ia@eugeneoneill.net. To purchase private or group sessions for the IA Track, click here. |