Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill – it has won The 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eugene O’Neill has also written Desire Under the Elms https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/desire-under-elms-by-eugene-oneill-10.html and other remarkable plays - 9 out of 10

 

Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill – it has won The 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eugene O’Neill has also written Desire Under the Elms https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/desire-under-elms-by-eugene-oneill-10.html and other remarkable plays

 

9 out of 10

 

If we look on the internet, we find some very interesting things about this drama, it was ‘one of the few modern plays to make extensive use of a soliloquy technique, in which the characters speak their inner thoughts to the audience’, in the original it is six hours long, hence it was produced on different days, mini-series they would call it today

 

The version I have heard was produced locally, with three of the celebrated thespians – if only in this realm, albeit Ion Caramitru, deceased about one year ago, is present in the first Mission Impossible, the first with Tom Cruise that is, directed by the mesmerizing De Palma https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/05/note-on-mission-impossible-directed-by.html

Ion Caramitru is one of the spies that appear in the first few minutes, and he used to be the head of the UNITER, the local association of theater actors, directors and more, not one of my favorites nevertheless, the giant that we have had here was George Constantin https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-enigma-in-will-based-on-graves-by.html

 

The latter was on the same level with Jack Nicholson, and for that matter, anybody else, part of the crème de la crème, the nec plus ultra – a spoiler alert needs to be inserted here, maybe it would have been appropriate above, but here it is – and he shared a similar event with Jack Nicholson, on the stage…

About Nicholson we find from The Kid Stays in The Picture https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-kid-stays-in-picture-by-robert.html by Robert Evans, who had been an actor, head of Paramount, and the producer of classics like Chinatown, The Godfather, Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, who has discovered The Great Seducer

 

Bob Evans was seeing an actor for some part, but he was fascinated not by the one trying to get the role, but by Jack Nicholson, who had no line, but whose presence was so magnetic, and something similar has happened to our very own Geroge Constantin, when the Bolshoi was visiting, the guests were overwhelmed by the actor who did not have lines, but whose majesty, aura, ability to change the atmosphere was formidable

Nina Leeds is the…leading role in Strange Interlude – she is played in this local production that has been aired by Radio Cultural by an extremely attractive thespian, Violeta Andrei, I am not sure if she is still alive now, she could be in her eighties, but some fifty years ago, she was a fabulous actress, married to a big shot

 

From that point view, we should have avoided her films, plays, since she was part of the nomenclature, sitting right there, with the vile apparatchiks, the dogs that helped the pigs keep control, the safety net for the tyrant, Ceausescu, one of the worst in Europe and the world…I am proud to have helped with his demise

There is a web link in the last paragraph, the one that I put at the end of all my notes, to brag, and ask for some support, if anybody stays that long on these pages, and has any advice, suggestion…as in the AT&T case, which is another story, but you see that below, if you have the patience, the time to lose in this space…

 

Nina Leeds marries Sam Evans (in the version I am actually writing about, this is Caramitru) but she finds from her mother-in-law that there is a disease in their family, and relatives have gone insane, which poses a question, nay, it is more serious than that, something that today would not be considered, in parts of the world

The main character does not want to have a baby that will go mad – which makes me think of America and the crazy laws they have in some Trump states there, Arizona has recently brought back to life a law from the time of the Civil War, so that women are forbidden to have an abortion, even in extreme cases and it is heinous

 

We have had this situation, where my spouse was pregnant, she did not know that she was, and went to an Xray with one of the six dogs she made me have in the house, and then, if the fetus is exposed to that radiation, it is fetus more likely to be born with medical conditions, and thus an abortion was performed…

In the play, the solution they find is to have a baby, but not with Sam, the husband, she will conceive it with Ned Darrell – Alexandru Repan, an appreciate actor, we met with his son at the Downtown sauna, where the best performers are clients, and we enjoy their presence, once in a while – and they hide the truth

 

When the boy has grown, Ned is mocking Sam, and the child is not aware who his real ‘parent’ is and so he gets furious and wants to see the physician gone, albeit the latter is the biological father, and the two should be close, there is tension, and we have to see what will come out of this complicated menage a trois or quattre

It makes me think of The Force of Circumstance https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-force-of-circumstance-by-somerset.html by Somerset Maugham - in this story, a white, British woman marries this man, who is in charge of a remote part of the British Empire, this is happening about one hundred years ago, or more, and when she moves to this outpost, she finds that a local woman is trying to change things, the native has had three children with the white fellow, and then she got kicked out, because of racism…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”