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The Emperor Jones is a play by Eugene O'Neill 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 his former subjects who have rebelled against him. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
Scene from Orson Welles Voodoo Macbeth The Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was a project to fund theater performances in the United States during the Great Depression. ...
Eugene Gladstone ONeill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was a Nobel- and four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright. ...
An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ...
“West Indian†redirects here. ...
The play displays an uneasy mix of expressionism and realism, which is to be found in several other O'Neill plays, including The Hairy Ape. It was O'Neill's first play to receive great critical acclaim and box office success, and the one which launched his career. The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893) which inspired 20th century Expressionists Portrait of Eduard Kosmack by Egon Schiele Rehe im Walde by Franz Marc Elbe Bridge I by Rolf Nesch On White II by Wassily Kandinsky, 1923. ...
Realism in the theatre was a general movement in the later 19th century that steered theatrical texts and performances toward greater fidelity to real life. ...
The Hairy Ape is an expressionist play by Eugene ONeill (1922). ...
Structure and Characters
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.
Influences
Carl Jung's Psychological Theories C. G. Jung's concept of the collective unconscious appears to have influenced O'Neill. Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology originally coined by Carl Jung. ...
Henri Christophe The life of Henri Christophe might have provided a basis for some of the events in the play. Portrait as King Henry I. Henri Christophe (October 6, 1767 – October 8, 1820) was a career officer and general in the Haïtian Army. ...
Ibsen It seems that the play is also influenced by Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Peer Gynt is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. ...
Kipling Some of the plot bears a very strong resemblance to Rudyard Kipling's story The Man Who Would Be King, in which Daniel Dravot also sets himself up as a ruler and convinces his subjects that only a silver bullet can kill him. This article is about the British author. ...
The Man Who Would Be King (1888) is a short story by Rudyard Kipling concerning two British ex-soldiers who set off from 19th century British India in search of adventure and end up as kings of Kafiristan (now part of Pakistan). ...
Daniel Dravot is one of two key fictional characters in Rudyard Kiplings short story The Man Who Would Be King, subsequently made into a feature film in 1975. ...
Productions
The 1920 Production Charles Sidney Gilpin was the first actor to play the role of Brutus Jones on stage on November 1, 1920 at The Playwright's Theatre in New York. O'Neill said later on that he was the only actor who had played an O'Neill character to O'Neill's full satisfaction, though they also had some conflict over Gilpin’s tendency to change a few words in his part. This production proved to be very successful and it launched O'Neill's reputation. The little Provincetown theater proved unable to cope with the demand, and the play was transferred to another theater. It ran for 204 performances and was hugely popular. Charles Sidney Gilpin (November 20, 1878 - May 6, 1930) worked as an apprentice in the Richmond Planet print shop before finding his career in theater and becoming one of the most highly regarded actors of the 1920s. ...
November 1 is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 60 days remaining. ...
1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ...
The 1924 Revival Due to disagreements with O'Neill, another actor was chosen for the main role in the London production and then in the 1924 revival, singer-actor Paul Robeson. Robeson received excellent reviews in the role, and, after appearing in the 1928 London production of the musical Show Boat (in which he played the role of the stevedore Joe and sang Ol' Man River), he went on to worldwide fame as one of the great black artists of the twentieth century. Gilpin has been forgotten by modern audiences, but the fame of Robeson has only increased with the years. Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was a multi-lingual American actor, athlete, bass-baritone concert singer, writer, civil rights activist, Communist sympathizer, Spingarn Medal winner, and Lenin Peace Prize laureate. ...
Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ...
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. One notable exception is the song Bill, which was originally written for Kern in 1918 by P. G. Wodehouse but reworked by Hammerstein for Show Boat, and two songs...
Stevedores on a New York dock loading barrels of corn syrup onto a barge on the Hudson River. ...
Ol Man River (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II) is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that tells the story of African American hardship and struggles of the time. ...
Other revivals The play lost popularity later on, mainly due to the fact that audiences in the '50s and '60s considered it to be racist. It still had a few occasional productions. Ossie Davis starred in a television adaptation in 1955. British television company ATV produced its own adaptation for the Armchair theatre series. It starred African-American actor Kenneth Spencer, directed by Ted Kotcheff and scripted by Terry Southern; it screened in the UK in March 1958[1] Ossie Davis in The Green Pastures, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1951 Ossie Davis (December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an African American film actor, director and social activist. ...
ATV can refer to: All-terrain vehicle, the a personal recreational vehicle normally consisting of a motorcycle-like engine, four balloon tires and a fiberglass body; a four-wheeler. ...
Ted Kotcheff (sometimes credited as William Kotcheff or William T. Kotcheff; born April 7, 1931 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Bulgarian-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...
Terry Southern (May 1, 1924 – October 29, 1995) was a highly influential American short story writer, novelist, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer. ...
Spin-offs
The 1933 Film For the 1933 film by Dudley Murphy and starring Paul Robeson see The Emperor Jones. Dudley Murphy (July 10, 1897 – February 22, 1968) Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts. ...
Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was a multi-lingual American actor, athlete, bass-baritone concert singer, writer, civil rights activist, Communist sympathizer, Spingarn Medal winner, and Lenin Peace Prize laureate. ...
The Emperor Jones is a 1933 film by Dudley Murphy based on the play by Eugene ONeill. ...
The 1933 Opera Louis Gruenberg wrote an opera based on the play, which was performed in 1933 with Lawrence Tibbett in the title role. Tibbett was white, and performed the role in blackface. Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 - July 15, 1960) was an American actor and singer. ...
This reproduction of a 1900 minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Litho Co. ...
Paul Robeson's film Song of Freedom contains a scene from the opera version, with Robeson singing the role. This has sometimes resulted in confusion; it is sometimes mistakenly thought that the 1933 film version of O'Neill's play is really a film of the opera. Song of Freedom was a 1936 British film starring Paul Robeson. ...
Video Art 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, starring Kate Valk and Willem Dafoe. The Wooster Group is an ensemble of artists who collaborate on the development and production of theatre and media pieces. ...
Kate Valk is a founding member of The Wooster Group. ...
William Dafoe, Jr. ...
References - ^ Lee Hill - A Grand Guy: The Life and Art of Terry Southern (Bloomsbury, 2001), pp.81-83
External links - David Goldenberg A founding member of the Vitaphone Project, a group of collectors devoted to saving early movie sound tracks, Mr. Goldenberg made a significant contribution to film preservation when he provided the Library of Congress with the only complete sound-track discs for the classic 1933 film The Emperor Jones.
- E-text of The Emperor Jones
- The 1933 film on IMDB
- Discussion of Emperor Jones from Travus Bogard's book Contours in Time, on eoneill.
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