Save Eugene O'Neill!
By Jack Marshall
On January 2, in its Metro Section, the Washington Post
reported that the Fairfax County library system was
dumping thousands of volumes that had not been checked out
in the last 24 months. Among the classics tossed to make
room for more novels by John Grisham and Tom Clancy, the
ghost-written autobiography of Hillary Clinton and the
fulminations of Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter: Gibbon's
Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire; Voltaire's
Candide, Hemingway's
For Whom the Bell Tolls, and
To Kill a Mockingbird.
Tennessee Williams'
The Glass Menagerie
got the heave-ho, too. Holding on by a thread only because
one librarian professed a bias as a former English major:
Nine Plays
by Eugene O'Neill.
The book was compiled by O'Neill himself , during a
creative lull after his 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature.
He was in ill health, battling alcoholism and depression
(as usual), and it was widely assumed, perhaps even by the
playwright himself, that his career was over. The nine
plays were thus O'Neill's summing up of his artistic
legacy before the burst of genius in the 1940s that
produced a second act to his career that was even more
impressive than the first. The nine plays include
Desire Under the Elms. If a Fairfax County
English major yields to public opinion, it will no longer
be in the shelves a year from now.
And when that happens, it will be a cultural turning
point, just as the banishing of Hemingway and Voltaire are
turning points. When public libraries base their
collections on public tastes rather than literary worth,
it guarantees widespread loss---loss of memory, loss of
perspective, loss of ideas, loss of inspiration, loss of
critical standards, loss of cultural depth and diversity.
But what is the alternative? One can hardly argue that a
book that never makes it to the check-out desk is
contributing anything to the community. Books, like plays,
don't communicate all by themselves. Somebody has to want
to read them and watch them.
One could be more sympathetic with the decision of the
Fairfax libraries if its policy were uniformly applied
with a consistent philosophy. The librarian who was
interviewed for the Post story said that the plays of
William Shakespeare would "always" be available, as well
as F. Scott Fitzgerald's
The Great Gatsby.
Well
why?
Why is Britain's greatest playwright guaranteed
enshrinement in our culture, while Tennessee Williams
loses his place on the shelves to reader apathy and Eugene
O'Neill barely makes the cut? For that matter, why should
one librarian's biases give O'Neill a pass? And who
decided that Fitzgerald's masterpiece gets the equivalent
of academic tenure, while, for example,
Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings
flunks out? If pure popularity is the measuring stick,
than let's apply it to all. On the other hand, if the
library is going to assume the responsibility of cultural
guardian, its choices should be based on better criteria
biases, conventional wisdom and individual favorites.
Libraries, art museums, orchestras and theater companies
are either the guardians of cultural riches, or there are
no guardians. Art forms that cannot escape commercial
forces are doomed to slough off supposed classics like
dead skin. Commercial radio is gradually eliminating not
only classical music and jazz from the airwaves but also
the popular music of the 40's, 50's and 60's, and with it
Bob Dylan, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and
Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers. With hundreds of cable
TV channels now available, only one consistently shows
great black-and-white classic films, which are gradually
fading from public awareness along with their inimitable
stars: James Cagney, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Fred
Astaire, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, Spencer
Tracy, and dozens moreeven Shirley Temple!
What will save Eugene O'Neill? Commercial necessities long
ago invaded the theater: grants are all that keep most
companies, even prominent ones, out of bankruptcy, and
grants are linked to audience. With libraries, it's
circulation. The Post story notes that circulation in
Fairfax libraries has been on the rise, meaning more
fundingand, it is clear, more Stephen King novels pushing
Emily Dickenson and Edgar Allen Poe out the door. "I think
the days of libraries saying, 'We must have that, because
it's good for people,' are beyond us," said Leslie Burger,
president of the American Library Association and director
of Princeton Public Library. "There is a sense in many
public libraries that popular materials are what most of
our communities desire. Everybody's got a favorite book
they're trying to promote."
This is an odd attitude in a society that delivers
messages and promotes policies to discourage smoking,
trans-fats, fast driving, excessive drinking, pot use and
junk food. "Most of our communities" enjoy those things,
too. What's the difference between promoting good health
and good art? It couldn't be that the dollars for
unhealthy food, drink and drugs flow to corporations,
while corporations, foundations and governments will
pay
for increased public consumption of rap music, Steve
Martin plays, Ann Rice novels, Ben Affleck movies and
Broadway juke-box musicals.
Could it?
So the hurdles to keeping the plays of Eugene O'Neill,
America's greatest playwright, in our cultural memory
become more and higher. Each generation of teachers
reflects its own cultural experience: today
The Color Purple, the poems of Maya Angelou and
The Heidi Chronicles
are more likely to be assigned in high school than
Moby-Dick, the poems of Robert Frost and
A Long Day's Journey into Night. Libraries, it
seems, will be no help. ""A book is not forever," said Sam
Clay, director of the 21-branch Fairfax system, in the
Post story. He is proving it by dumping the writings of
Plato and Aristotle, the thoughts that launched the
Renaissance and formed the foundation of Western
philosophy and science. At least they stayed with us for
3,000 years; the libraries are ready to jettison O'Neill
in less than a century.
If O'Neill is to survive, as well as Miller, Williams,
Albee, Hellman, and all the other great American
playwrights of the past, it must be the theater that saves
him. Even as other cultural institutions abandon their
obligation to fight for the best of our art and
literature, the theater try to adapt its own versions of
the model set by art museums, blending old and new, using
current fads and momentary hits to attract new attention
to proven works of quality and lasting value. And it must
find ways to present O'Neill's plays in new and innovative
ways, without distorting or destroying what makes them
great. Most of all, the theater must do O'Neill well, a
difficult challenge, because his are uniquely difficult
plays. Nothing will kill a classic like a string of shoddy
productions.
Even all of this will not be enough if audiences take no
responsibility for preserving their own cultural heritage.
Encouraging the public to see plays that are more than
time-killing eye-candy or strings of formula one-line
jokes is often derided as an "eat your spinach" tactic
that is bound to fail, but while spinach may not appeal,
most adults know that they won't thrive on a diet of Oreos
and Big Macs, either. The argument for Eugene O'Neill's
plays is more persuasive than the case for spinach: it's
not just that they are good for us, but also that they are
good.
O'Neill ought to be saved, not for him (for he is well
past caring), but for us and those who come after us. Can
he be saved in an era where art that doesn't pay the bills
is regarded as a burden, not a treasure?
We shall see.
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