Strange Interlude

This 1928 Eugene O'Neill play is running in London through August, cut from its original five hours to about three and a half. I saw an apt description of the published work on a website: high-brow soap opera. But in London one of the characters is being played, apparently successfully, mostly for laughs. With this in mind, the reader can stretch the work beyond its limits on the page. The play also benefits from O'Neill's technique of having characters speak thoughts that are heard only by the audience. Nina is the center of the play, a professor's daughter who loses her beloved in World War I. The ghost of this character, Gordon, haunts her throughout the play, following her into an ill-advised marriage, an abortion, an affair, and other travails. The title is referred to directly twice: The first time it represents the actual living present, which is the strange interlude between the memories of the past and the hopes for the future that make up real life. Not all of the characters are thwarted, but Nina ends up in a placid, otherworldly existence stripped of all conflict. Is that life? It can be.