Anna Christie

I read this play a few weeks ago and I must say it's fantastic. Of course there are some parts that are disappointing, but Eugene O'Neill draws the characters in such a way that you cannot help but relate to them. Anna is so strong, so independent, so conflicted, and so human! Even if some people don't like the ending, I think it makes sense the way it is. Great read, short play, and I think I like it better than Long Day's Journey Into Night, although it's usually regarded as O'Neill's best work.

With the 1921 production of "Anna Christie," O'Neill's skills as a dramatist finally reached maturity. Entirely revamped from an earlier play ("Chris Christophersen"), this four-act drama depicts a headstrong young woman, Anna, who renounces her life as a prostitute and tracks down the father who abandoned her as a child. Enamored of his new charge and unaware of her past, Christopherson (O'Neill changed the spelling for this version) tries to pamper and protect the daughter he had neglected during her formative years. Yet Chistopherson has issues of his own: now a captain of a coastal coal barge, he, too, has lived a seafaring live of loose morals and social irresponsibility. Believing that the vigorous demands and easy temptations of a sailor's career have ruined his own life, he has abandoned the sea for good. Confronted with a daughter who initially enjoys life on the ocean, he swears to keep her both from its influence and from the men who make their living from it--with predictable results. When Anna falls in love with Mat, a stoker for a steamer, she finds herself torn between her father's expectations and her lover's demands, and she discovers that both men, like the clients from her previous life, are buffoonish cads and patronizing bullies. The third act, which depicts the inevitable three-side confrontation between Anna and her two "protectors," is one of the most skillfully scripted clashes in American theater. The final act, alas, succumbs to a conventional melodramatic mawkishness. Yet overall the play is saved by the faithful rendering of sailor's speech, the emotional depth of its characters, and the (for its time) forward-looking presentation of social ills.

"Anna Christie," the play by the great U.S. writer Eugene O'Neill, won the Pulitzer Prize for the 1921-22 theater season. All these decades later, the play still packs an emotional punch. "Anna Christie" focuses on three characters: Anna, who has had a traumatic life in the United States; her father Chris, a Swedish merchant seaman; and Mat Burke, an Irish stoker who takes an interest in Anna. The play takes place in New York City and on Chris's barge."Anna Christie" is a compelling study of gender roles and expectations, ethnic conflict in the U.S., family ties and disruptions, the call of the seafaring life, and fatalism versus the embrace of free will. Particularly interesting is O'Neill's representation of various types of vernacular speech. Overall, a classic American play that deserves an ongoing reading audience.

Amazing!!! The characters were wonderfully acted out and the relationship between father and daughter was such a gripping story.