O'Neill, Supertext and Song

I have come to think of Eugene O’Neill’s plays in musical terms. Among the actors who have inspired this thinking are Tony Award honorees Julie Harris, Jason Robards, Zoe Caldwell, Brian Murray and Marian Seldes. Each has shed unique light on the subject.

Julie Harris
After a reading of Long Day’s Journey Into Night at The Roundabout Theater, Julie touched my hand to make a point as she described theatricality as “surprise”, taking me by surprise.

There was no more surprising a moment as when the actress momentarily sang. It was a moment in which speech nearly ascended to song, as if Julie had been singing all along.

As she sinks into the isolation of her morphine haze, Julie broke into a lyrical moan…

“Then Mother of God why do I feel so looonely.”

It was a moment of heightened speech that was undeniably musical.

Jason Robards
Jason reprised his stage performance as Jamie Tyrone in the 1962 film of Long Days Journey.

In it, he subjects his brother to a confession of jealous rage. When Jamie admits that his brother is succeeding in spite of him, realizing that his own accomplishments will pale by comparison, he intones his discovery.

“I made you! You are my Frankenstein!”

Jason, whose name is synonymous with O’Neill’s, was a man who loved to sing onstage and off. Mutual friends have commented on the convivial joy he took in raising his voice in song. (I was personally present for one such display).

Jamie’s realization in Jason’s voice was both a climactic and lyrical one, operatic in intensity and unmistakably vocal.

Zoe Caldwell
Zoe played Mary Tyrone to Jason’s James Tyrone in the 1988 O’Neill centenary production of Long Days. She reprised an excerpt of her stage performance in a recent O’Neill Studio Forum.

As Mary pities the ravaging effect time has had on her hands, she speaks of her “poor hands.”

As she spoke of what Mary had lost, her ability to make music, her voice dropped (in musical terms) the interval of a minor third. It was a lilting motif that was music itself.

Zoe, who also played diva Maria Callas in Master Class, is a master of the spoken musical line.

Brian Murray
Brian played James Tyrone in the Irish Rep production of Long Days Journey.

In the last act of the same play, Tyrone turns off light bulbs to save money; he says “we don’t want to make the electric company rich.” At this moment, the accusations his family has been making of miserliness are again confirmed to the audience.

In Charlotte Moore’s production, Brian seemed to ride a wave that finally peaked as Tyrone admits to being a skinflint and asks…

“What was it I wanted to buy?”

In Brian’s mellifluous voice this illumination echoed with the resonance of “supertext.”

“Supertext is what the subtext first hints at and into which it later erupts” to quote Brian, who first introduced me to the idea. “Supertext is confirmation of what the audience is expecting.” A supertextual moment can send a performance into flight.

Brian’s performance was so subtly lived, you could barely hear the ascent to supertext. Even so, the breaking moment was unmistakable as his Tyrone admits what the audience had known all along.

In four different performances of the same work, four leading actors brought their own unique musical instincts to moments of realization. Julie, in a lonely moan of sorrow, Jason in his steely, spiteful baritone, Zoe in doleful pity for her hands and Brian in his rolling bass of regret all found music in word. Each brought high lyricism to moments of revelation in O’Neill.

Marian Seldes
In a recent O’Neill Studio Forum, Marian offered a clue as to how one finds the lyrical possibilities in text. After reading excerpts from Long Day’s Journey, she was asked by a young actor how she remains emotionally alive during a performance.

Marian, who recently performed a speaking role in La Fille du Regiment at The Metropolitan Opera, described her process in the same way an opera singer might.

“I fill the vase and I empty it… I fill the vase and I empty it.”

For O’Neill to be song, actors must think of themselves as singers. While not lyrics, his lines must be approached lyrically. After all, he had the touch of a poet in him and was more than a little Irish.

When music is in the air, his plays are charged with the promise of surprise. As a result, O’Neill’s dark tragedies ring brightly.