...
Show More
Beatrix Lehmann had a notable presence in Eugene O'Neill's plays in London. She appeared in three of his works, and this collection included two of them. In "All God's Chillun Got Wings," which had a short run in June 1929, the play centered around a mixed-race couple. I had initially pictured them as rural, but in fact, they had grown up together in New York. Despite being mostly written in dialect, I truly enjoyed this play. It did become a bit melodramatic towards the end, but until then, it provided a fascinating look into the racism of the time. It's disheartening to think that for many decades after, and in some parts of America still, not much has changed. It's sad that the couple didn't have the strength to love each other without going mad, and that their perception of society's view of them was worse than the reality. It was both interesting and very sad. "Desire under the Elms," on the other hand, I didn't care for nearly as much. This was the hick family that I had thought would be the setting for the first play. It consisted of an old farmer, his middle-aged sons, and his youngish new wife. Everyone spoke in a full-on hick dialect, and everyone was stupid and self-interested. While I had fun imagining Beatrix playing the main character, full of madness and desire, mostly the play was about hideous men being stupid with each other, and I couldn't muster any sympathy for the characters at all. The other play Beatrix was in was "Mourning becomes Electra," which I'm looking forward to reading at some point. I'm curious to see how it compares to the other two plays and what kind of role she played in it.