Director's comments on
"A Touch of the Poet"

To be quite blunt, I've never been a fan of O'Neill.  At least not until last year.  The fault really isn't with the author but in the standard interpretation of his plays.  Normally one walks out of the theatre after an evening of  O'Neill with a rather depressed feeling.  His plays are usually played as compete tragedys with everyone involved failing at life. Not a pleasant way to spend the evening.

However, last year I caught the brilliant performance of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" by the Stratford company starring the brillian William Hutt (a national treasure if ever there was one) and I was blown away!  Normally the theme of that play is taken as how much everyone would like to love one another but can't because of the various dysfunctions in the family.  The Stratford production was all about how much these people did love one another in spite of the problems.

Now being of Scottish Border reiver stock, I know when to lift a good thing, and I hope to do the same thing with this production. The play, from what I can determine from my reading, has normally been played with the hero going from one fantasy state to another and everyone in the end failing at life.  In this production, our hero Con Melody and his wife Nora are going to be winners.

If you want to know how, you'll have to come and see the play.