Mourning Becomes Electra

Eugene O'Neill's 1931 play reminds me of the difficulties of producing an abstracted work in these times. At a performance I attended a few years ago of Verdi's Don Carlo, the conductor appeared on stage between acts to announce to the audience that they should not be laughing: The opera is a tragedy, and the laughter was disturbing the performers. I think the audience's problem in that case was part of the execrable critical approach that seeks to "identify with" a character. If you attempt to put yourself in the place of a king who is making grandiloquent statements, you may well laugh. But as Fran Lebowitz pointed out in a recent documentary, a novel (or play or opera, I would add) is not supposed to be a mirror but a door. I can only cringe at the thought of today's audiences chuckling at the overheated dialogue of O'Neill's masterful retelling of Greek myth.