Desire Under the Elms

I'm not one for trigger warnings. They dilute the ink in our pens. I'd rather be knocked off my chair as a reader. And as a writer, I love when readers gasp. Yet, I recommend this with reservations. It's not for everyone. Something happens in it that is shocking and hideous. The folksy accents can l......more

I love plays which transform the limitations of the stage into possibilities - and this is a great example of the art. Ephraim Cabot is the quintessential patriarch: playing absolute dictator to his sons on his lonely farm, and lording it over man and beast alike. Simeon and Peter, his sons by his fi......more

Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O’Neill was first produced in 1924; like other O’Neill plays, such as Mourning Becomes Electra, it is an attempt to graft the structure and some themes of classical Greek drama in a (more) contemporary setting with autobiographical elements. This one was particularly......more

The only words I can use to describe Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms are: shocking and disturbing. The play is very well written and the characters are so well developed that, as a reader, I felt like I really knew them. I understood Peter and Simeon's bond and their desire to make a life for......more