Bodyart Movie Reviews

Dour playwright Eugene O'Neill took a rare comedic look at life in Ah, Wilderness!, perhaps his warmest play, here given a superb performance (based on a production by the Long Wharf Theater). Over the course of a Fourth of July weekend, a young man has his heart broken, discovers drink and loose women, and puts his heart back together again. The play contrasts young love with the enduring affection of the young man's parents--and with the failed relationship of the boy's alcoholic uncle and spinster aunt. The balance of affection and sorrow is handled with sure skill, both in the play and in the production, which features O'Neill stalwart Geraldine Fitzgerald, as well as actors like Swoosie Kurtz and Linda Hunt, who would go on to future stardom. Sweet but not saccharine, sad but not bitter, Ah, Wilderness! stands as one of O'Neill's best works. --Bret Fetzer

Many of Eugene O'Neill's classic themes are present in his first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon, for which he won his first of four Pulitzer Prizes: Fantasy vs. reality, destiny subverted, sibling rivalry, and more. Rob Mayo is a young farmboy who reads poetry and dreams of going to sea; his brother Andy, a farmer through and through, wants nothing more than tilling this corner of the earth until his dying day. But both are in love with a girl named Ruth, and this conflict leads both to go against their deepest desires, leading to illness and unhappiness. Beyond the Horizon is justifiably overshadowed by O'Neill's later works, but the powers of his writing are still present. The well-received McCarter Theatre production is earnest and solid, and features Geraldine Fitzgerald (who garnered acclaim in many productions of O'Neill's work) and the great John Houseman (The Paper Chase). --Bret Fetzer