Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

WHERE THE CROSS IS MADE
Written by EUGENE O’NEILL

Directed by FRANK KUHN

Featuring
JOE CANDELORA, MICHAEL HARDART, JOHN INGLE,
DENA MILLER, & JULIE PHAM

Narrated by DINA MILLER
Additional Character Renderings Painted by PAMELA LAWTON
Background: DANNY LICUL

Guest Scholar Talkback with ALEXANDER PETTIT, Ph.D., Editor of the Eugene O’Neill Review

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 20, 2020, 8 p.m.

Wow, this was a yummy one. A ghost story written by O’Neill in his formative years, filling our heads with visions created by word craft rather than physical props. Melodramatic and eerie, it was the perfect production for Solstice Night. Blow out the candle and watch it by moonlight.

Atop his old house by the sea, Captain Bartlett is obsessed with his dream. Years ago he was shipwrecked on a remote island with three crew members. Delirium, hunger, thirst, isolation. Only the captain was found alive when rescuers arrived. Since then he has patrolled his rooftop, waiting for his lost ship to reappear. Under this “deck’, he inhabits the top story room of the house, now outfitted to look like a sea captain’s quarters. He never leaves his perfect dream habitat. His fixation, his obsession, is on his dream...his ship will return, laden with trunks full of treasure, guided by his island crew members.

His daughter, Sue, brings his meals to him. His son, Nat, has had enough. His dad forced him to leave school and go to sea, where he lost his arm. Nat considers himself a cripple. Bitter and fed up with his father’s delusions, he plans to have the old man institutionalized. Their house is in foreclosure, the neighbors are freaked-out by the crazy coot, and Nat wants to pursue his life as a writer.

Nat has made arrangements with the bank and the doctor. Tonight dad will be gently taken away. Matt will stay on as property manager. Sue is engaged, so will be married and well taken care of. A neat little package. But what is drama without conflict? Sue flips out. She doesn’t want her father sent away. Nat stands firm. He declares that for him, it is too late for dreams. He has no more time to wait and hope. To show his commitment to the future, he burns the treasure map his father gave him. The one with the “cross” marking the site of the trove. The imaginary trove at an imaginary place in the mind of a madman.

Footsteps thump down from the roof. It’s dad, cursing his son, acting quite mad, actually. Wild-eyed, he shouts that the ship has arrived! Just look out the window! There she is! His crew is carrying the treasure chests into the house! Invisible men? Ghouls resurrected from seaweed? Mirages, delusions, reality, or simply nothing at all? Who is sane and who is insane?

This play was written in 1918, a year of intense anxiety due to the influenza epidemic and World War I. It was meant to frighten the audience, to disturb them, and to draw them into the feeling of insanity. It certainly succeeds.

Great work by the actors and a big thank you to Metropolitan Virtual Playhouse for these weekly live virtual productions. If you are going insane from all this self-quarantine, you might as well do so in the company of Eugene O’Neill.

-Karen D’Onofrio-