Goodman 'Exploration' delves into the works of O'Neill

"Most people, the vast majority of people, live their whole lives without hearing the name Eugene O'Neill," says actor Brian Dennehy. "The vast majority of people live their whole lives without having a serious thought."

Brian Dennehy isn't one of them. Neither is Goodman Theatre artistic director Robert Falls.

The longtime friends and frequent collaborators are intimately familiar with the groundbreaking 20th century playwright, who chronicled damaged psyches and family dysfunction, and introduced to American drama the realism pioneered by 19th century European playwrights like Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg.

Over the years, Dennehy and Falls have collaborated on memorable productions of "The Iceman Cometh" (1990), "A Touch of the Poet" (1996), "Long Day's Journey into Night" (2002) and "Hughie" (2004). They reunite for "Desire Under the Elms," O'Neill's Greek-inspired American tragedy from 1924. An exploration of greed, sex, jealousy and manipulation, it centers on the love triangle between a flinty New England farmer, his covetous young wife and his resentful son.

The production serves as the centerpiece of Goodman's "Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century." The ambitious undertaking brings together companies know for their progressive, distinctly modern interpretations of O'Neill's work, including New York's Wooster Group, Brazil's Companhia Triptal, The Netherlands' Toneelgroep and Chicago's own Hypocrites and Neo-Futurists.

The challenge of re-imagining O'Neill's plays for a 21st century audience and examining his relevance today inspired Falls' decision to host the festival which showcases cutting-edge interpretations of some classic as well as lesser known plays.

"O'Neill is tough," says Falls, who refers to the playwright as the American Shakespeare and says that over the last 20 years, O'Neill's plays have ranked among Goodman's most-popular, best-reviewed productions.

"He asks difficult questions and demands a lot from an audience in terms of their attention and commitment," says Falls.

Dennehy welcomes the challenge as an actor and as an admirer.

"O'Neill set for himself the highest mountain you can climb: trying to explore and understand what the point of human existence was," says Dennehy.

But not everyone is willing to make that trek. Dennehy has a theory why that's so.

"It's easy to be distracted," says the actor, who's something of an O'Neill scholar as well as one of the foremost interpreters of his work.

People work hard, go home to their families, watch TV, take an Ambien, go to sleep. Then they get up and do it all over again.

And they're content to do so.

"The idea of seriously examining their lives and who they are, and why they do what they do, what they can be and what it all means" never occurs to them, he says.

O'Neill fixes on the soul's deepest darkest recesses and "his gaze into the soul is unblinking," says Dennehy. "He's prepared to look at it in all its rudeness."

Certainly most of us can do with a little more self-examination, but Dennehy has no illusions that Goodman's showcase will convince masses of people to do so. Yet, it might inspire some.

Director Sean Graney has less lofty goals. He hopes that the inclusion of early experimental works like "The Emperor Jones" (the global exploration opened with a controversial production by the Wooster Group, in which a white woman played the main character - a black man - in blackface) and "The Hairy Ape" (which Graney directs) will introduce the public to alternative theatrical styles like expressionism.

"American realism is the default of American theater," he says. "Anything you do that's not in a realist vein people ascribe to a style. Realism is as much a style as anything else, and as equally arbitrary."

The rise of O'Neill and other American playwrights corresponded to the rise of method acting, which developed mid-century and remains the standard. The style "hobbled the playwrights with realism," says Falls.

"The kind of freedom we see with Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov is rare with American playwrights."

Their works are typically interpreted literally, Falls says. For that reason, he deliberately chose directors and productions that push the envelope, that reach beyond realism.

Graney, whose approach toward classic plays tends toward the progressive, appreciates Falls' efforts to shake things up.

When people hear the name O'Neill, they think "Desire Under the Elms" or "Long Day's Journey Into Night," says Graney.

They don't realize he experimented with several styles.

"I think they'll be surprised that O'Neill was such an adventurous writer," he says.

Graney's Hypocrites has a reputation for being adventurous, for cracking plays open and looking at them in a new way, the very thing Falls wants to accomplish.

The festival marks Graney's first time directing O'Neill. He chose "The Hairy Ape" for personal as well as professional reasons.

"It's as close to German expressionism of the 1920s as (O'Neill) gets," says Graney. "That's a style and a movement that speaks to me: the idea that the modern world is sucking the life out of an individual. And when an individual doesn't speak the same language, he's rejected by the societal machine."

The play also offers an intriguing take on capitalism.

"The only good thing about the recession is that all of the veiled socialist plays of the 1920s and 1930s become important again," opined Graney. "Audiences are more open to listen to the message that maybe the capitalist machine isn't the great machine we thought it was."

Falls has spent the last 15 months preparing for this event and he has yet to determine what O'Neill means to the 21st century. But his enthusiasm for one of theater's densest, most challenging and most provocative playwrights remains undiminished.

"His plays are not objects stuck in time, but are true works of art that expand and are open to interpretation."

"One can't predict in another 100 years who will be discarded, but at this point I think O'Neill will be remembered," says Falls. "I hope his plays find a permanent place in the repertoire, the way Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen and Strindberg's plays have."

"A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century"

Facts: Through March 8: at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, (312) 443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org

Tickets: $12-$82