The Emperor Jones
Encyclopedia
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor. The play recounts his story in flashbacks as Brutus makes his way through the forest in an attempt to escape former subjects who have rebelled against him.
The play displays an uneasy mix of expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and realism
Realism (dramatic arts)
Realism was a general movement in 19th-century theatre that developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances....
, which is also characteristic of several other O'Neill plays, including The Hairy Ape
The Hairy Ape
-Plot :The play tells the story of a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich...
. It was O'Neill's first play to receive great critical acclaim and box office success, and the one that launched his career.
Summary
The play is divided into eight scenes. Scenes 2 through 7 are from the point of view of Jones, and no other character speaks. The first and last scenes feature a character named Smithers, a white trader who appears to be part of illegal activities. In the first scene, Smithers is told about the rebellion by an old woman, and then has a lengthy conversation with Jones. In the last scene, Smithers converses with Lem, the leader of the rebellion. Smithers has mixed feelings about Jones, though he generally has more respect for Jones than for the rebels. During this scene, Jones is killed by a silver bullet, which was the only way that the rebels believed Jones could be killed, and the way in which Jones planned to kill himself if he was captured.1920 Premiere
The Emperor Jones was first staged on 1 November 1920 by the Provincetown PlayersProvincetown Players
The Provincetown Players was an amateur group of writers and artists who, at the early part of the 20th Century, wanted to see a change in American theatre and created a company committed to producing new plays by exclusively American playwrights...
at the Playwright's Theater
Provincetown Playhouse
The Provincetown Playhouse is a theater in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the former bottling plant into a theater in 1918. Much of the original building was torn down in 2009 as New York University School of Law planned a new building on the...
in New York City. Charles Sidney Gilpin
Charles Sidney Gilpin
Charles Sidney Gilpin became one of the most highly regarded actors of the 1920s. He played in critical debuts in New York: in the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln and played the lead role of Brutus Jones in the 1920 premier of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, also touring...
was the first actor to play the role of Brutus Jones on stage and O'Neill said later that he was the only actor who had played an O'Neill character to O'Neill's full satisfaction. They did have some conflict over Gilpin's tendency to change a few words as he acted. This production was very successful and it helped make O'Neill's reputation. The little Provincetown theater was too small to cope with audience demand for tickets, and the play was transferred to another theater. It ran for 204 performances and was hugely popular.
The 1924 Revival
Although Gilpin continued to perform the role of Brutus Jones in the U.S. tour that followed the Broadway closing of the play, he eventually had a falling out with O'Neill. Gilpin wanted O'Neill to remove the word "nigger", which occurred frequently in the play, but the playwright felt its use was consistent with his dramatic intentions. When they could not come to a reconciliation, O'Neill replaced Gilpin with Paul RobesonPaul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
as Brutus Jones in the London production. Robeson received excellent reviews and, coupled with his performance in the 1928 London production of the musical Show Boat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
, Robeson went on to worldwide fame as one of the great black artists of the twentieth century, while Gilpin faded into obscurity.
Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre ProjectFederal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal project to fund theatre and other live artistic performances in the United States during the Great Depression. It was one of five Federal One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration...
of the Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
launched several productions of the play in cities across the United States, including a production with marionettes in Los Angeles in 1938.
Recent Productions
The Wooster GroupThe Wooster Group
The Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged during 1975-1980 from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group and took its name in 1980...
mounted a production of the play in 2007 for the Philadelphia LiveArts Festival which played to sold-out audiences every night of its run. Along with its post-dramatic aesthetics, this staging was notable in that the actor playing the part of Jones, Kate Valk
Kate Valk
Kate Valk is a founding member of The Wooster Group, a collective of artists who make new work for the theater. Under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte and with its associates and staff, the Group has created nineteen theater pieces, four dances, three radio plays, five video/film works and...
, was female, white, and performed in black face.
The play ran for 33 performances at The National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
directed by Thea Sharrock starring Paterson Joseph
Paterson Joseph
-Career:Born in London. Attended Cardinal Hinsley R.C High School in North West London. Joseph first trained at the Studio '68 of Theatre Arts, London – 1983–85 with Robert Henderson, then at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art . In recent years he has had a high number of roles in...
in the lead.
New York's Irish Repertory Theatre
Irish Repertory Theatre
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off Broadway theatre, founded by Ciarán O’Reilly and Charlotte Moore, which opened its doors in September 1988, with Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars.The mission of the theatre was and remains:...
staged a 2009 revival, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews. John Douglas Thompson
John Douglas Thompson
John Douglas Thompson is an OBIE Award-winning Canadian-American actor of Jamaican descent.-Early life and education:Thompson was born in Bath, England in 1964 to Jamaican parents and was raised in Montreal. He graduated from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York in 1985, where he studied...
portrayed Jones.
Adaptations
The play was adapted for a 1933 feature filmThe Emperor Jones (1933 film)
The Emperor Jones is a 1933 film adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play of the same title, directed by Dudley Murphy, featuring Paul Robeson, Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, and Fredi Washington. The screenplay was written by DuBose Heyward and filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios with the beach scene...
directed by Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy was an American film director. Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts...
and starring Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
.
Louis Gruenberg
Louis Gruenberg
-Life and career:He was born near Brest-Litovsk , to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. His father worked as a violinist in New York City...
wrote an opera based on the play
The Emperor Jones (opera)
The Emperor Jones is an opera in two acts with a prologue and interlude composed by Louis Gruenberg to an English language libretto adapted by Kathleen De Jaffa and the composer from Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play, The Emperor Jones. It premiered on January 7, 1933 at the Metropolitan Opera in New...
, which was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York City in 1933. Baritone Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
sang the title role, performing in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
. Paul Robeson's 1936 film Song of Freedom features a scene from the opera with Robeson singing the role of Jones. This has sometimes resulted in a confusion that the 1933 film of O'Neill's play is a film of the opera.
Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
starred in a television adaptation
The Emperor Jones (1955 film)
The Emperor Jones is a 1955 film adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play of the same title produced by the Kraft Television Theatre anthology series starring Ossie Davis in the title role....
for the Kraft Television Theatre
Kraft Television Theatre
Kraft Television Theatre is an American drama/anthology television series that began May 7, 1947 on NBC, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. In January 1948, it moved to 9pm on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the J...
in 1955. British television company ABC-TV
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
produced its own adaptation for the Armchair Theatre
Armchair Theatre
Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television after 1968....
series which was transmitted on 30 March 1958. It features African-American actor Kenneth Spencer
Kenneth Lee Spencer
Kenneth Lee Spencer was an American opera singer and actor. A talented bass-baritone, Spencer starred in a few Broadway musicals and musical films in the United States during the 1940s. Frustrated with the racial prejudice he experienced in the United States, Spencer moved to Germany in 1950 where...
, and was directed by Ted Kotcheff
Ted Kotcheff
Ted Kotcheff , sometimes credited as William Kotcheff or William T. Kotcheff, is a Canadian film and television director, who is well known for his work on several high-profile British television productions and as a director of films such as First Blood.-Early life:Kotcheff was born William...
in a version by Terry Southern
Terry Southern
Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...
wrote a ballet based on the play, that was commissioned by The Empire Music Festival of New York, and danced by José Limón
José Limón
José Arcadio Limón was a pioneer in the field of modern dance and choreography. In 1928, at age 20, he moved to New York City where he studied under Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. In 1946, Limón founded the José Limón Dance Company...
's company. An experimental video by Christopher Kondek and Elizabeth LeCompte showcases the production of the play by the New York–based performance troupe The Wooster Group
The Wooster Group
The Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged during 1975-1980 from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group and took its name in 1980...
, starring Kate Valk
Kate Valk
Kate Valk is a founding member of The Wooster Group, a collective of artists who make new work for the theater. Under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte and with its associates and staff, the Group has created nineteen theater pieces, four dances, three radio plays, five video/film works and...
and Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
.