O'Neill: Two Families

In 1977, I was asked by the Milwaukee Repertory Theater to create a video to support it's mounting of two Eugene O'Neill plays: "Ah, Wilderness" and "A Long Day's Journey into Night". The same actors would play similar roles in the two plays, which seemed to act as a comedy / tragedy mirror of each other. This was 1977, remember, and video was either broadcast or industrial, with broadcast being the land of giant 2" tape machines, large cameras, and tremendous hierarchy. Editing was always done at a "post house", unlike today when broadcast quality can come from a desktop. "Industrial video" had barely been born... there were recent advances with portable cameras attached to somewhat portable recorders, but there was no way that a production house like Sorgel-Lee-RIordan was going to have in-house editing. The story of how this assignment to produce a documentary for Public Television will be part of an article I'm writing, but it was a rewarding and yet debilitating experience! We made the deadline, made great friends with the actors, learned more than I ever thought I would know about Eugene O'Neill and New London Connecticut, and it's all here in this ancient, grainy (yet color) video. Rob Riordan, Ric Sorgel, Mary Bryant, Richard Bryant, Gerald Muhlenberg, Sally Pavetti, Linda Barton, Linda Duczman, Bob Marx, and the Director, Artistic Director, Managing Director and Actors of the Rep and many others were supportive and / or contributed mightily to the project's success. We used a mix of location video, location film, film editing, interviews, and more O'Neill and New London pictures than you can shake a grinder at. We used our Sorgel-Lee-RIordan sound editing and picture editing style and kept things moving. I think that's why it still holds up fairly well today. Camera colors are mismatched---that was the case then, using separate crews and all, and not having today's color correction technology. Steve Lutomski narrated; Dan Mooney portrayed O'Neill in voiceover.