Anna Christie

Anna Christie
Poster for the 1977 Broadway revival by James McMullan
Written by	Eugene O'Neill
Date premiered	November 2, 1921
Place premiered	Vanderbilt Theatre New York City
Original language	English
Subject	a former prostitute falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around
Genre	Drama
Setting	1910; a New York City saloon; on a barge at anchor in Provincetown
IBDB profile

Anna Christie is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It made its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O'Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this work.

Plot summary

Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around.

Characters

• Johnny the Priest
• Two longshoremen
• A postman
• Larry - bartender
• Chris C. Christopherson - captain of the barge Simeon Winthrop
• Marthy Owen
• Anna Christopherson - Chris’s daughter
• Mat Burke - a stoker
• Johnson - deckhand on barge

Act I

The first act takes place in a bar, owned by Johnny the Priest and tended by Larry. Old Chris, a coal barge captain, receives a letter from his daughter, a young woman whom he has not seen since she was a 5 years old and their family lived in Sweden. They meet at the bar and she agrees to go on the coal barge with him. The rest of the play takes place on the barge.

Act II

The barge crew rescues Mat Burke and four other men, who were in an open boat after a shipwreck. After not getting along at first, Mat and Anna fall in love.

Act III

A confrontation between Anna, Chris and Mat. Mat wants to marry Anna, Chris does not want them to get married because he doesn't want her to marry a sailor, and Anna is upset with both of them for trying to be in charge of her. Anna tells them the truth about her life, that she was raped while living with her mother's relatives on a Minnesota farm, and then became a prostitute after her time as a nurse's aide. Mat gets very angry, and Mat and Chris both leave.

Act IV

Mat and Chris return. Anna forgives Chris for not being part of her childhood, and after a dramatic confrontation, Mat forgives Anna for being a prostitute after she promises never to be one again, and Chris agrees to them getting married. It turns out that Chris and Mat have both signed up for the same ship going to South Africa, and they are about to leave the next day, but promise to come home to Anna after the voyage.

Productions

O'Neill's first version of the play, begun in January 1919, was entitled Chris Christopherson and performed as Chris in out-of-town tryouts. O’Neill revised it radically, changing the barge captain’s daughter Anna from a pure woman needing to be protected into a prostitute who finds reformation and love from life on the sea. The new play, now entitled Anna Christie received its premiere on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre on 2 November 1921 for 177 performances before closing in April 1923. The production was staged by Arthur Hopkins starring Pauline Lord.

Alexander Woollcott in the New York Times called it "a singularly engrossing play", and advised that "all grown-up playgoers should jot down in their notebooks the name of Anna Christie as that of a play they really ought to see."

• 1923: The London West End premiere was staged at the Strand Theatre (now the Novello) in 1923. This was the first time an O'Neill play was seen in the West End. The play starred Pauline Lord, who had been the original Anna Christie on Broadway. The play had a great reception. Time magazine wrote, "In London, the first night of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, with Pauline Lord in the title role, received a tremendous ovation. After the first act the curtain was rung up a dozen times during the applause.

• 1952: The play was revived at the Lyceum Theatre on 23 January 1952 in a production staged by Michael Gordon and designed by Emeline C. Roche with Celeste Holm as Anna, Kevin McCarthy and Arthur O'Connell. It ran for only 8 performances.

• 1955: According to actress Ellen Burstyn in the 2012 film "Marilyn in Manhattan," Marilyn Monroe performed a scene from Anna Christie at the Actors Studio with Maureen Stapleton. Calling the story "legendary, " Burstyn said, "Everybody who saw that says that it was not only the best work Marilyn ever did, it was some of the best work ever seen at Studio, and certainly the best interpretation of Anna Christie anybody ever saw. She...achieved real greatness in that scene." (According to some biographers, Marilyn was molested by foster parents and worked as a prostitute.)

• 1977: The play was revived at the Imperial Theatre on 14 April 1977 in a production directed by José Quintero and designed by Ben Edwards. It starred Liv Ullmann as Anna, Robert Donley, John Lithgow and Mary McCarty. It received Tony nominations for Liv Ullmann as Best Actress and for Mary McCarty as Best Featured Actress. It ran for 124 performances.

• 1993: The play was revived on Broadway on 14 January 1993 in a production by The Roundabout Theatre Company at the Criterion Center Stage Right. It was directed by David Leveaux and designed by John Lee Beatty. It starred Natasha Richardson, Liam Neeson, Anne Meara, and Rip Torn. It received Tony nominations for Best Actress (Natasha Richardson), Best Actor (Liam Neeson), Best Featured Actress (Anne Meara), Best Direction (David Leveaux) and won the award for Best Revival. Neeson and Richardson both received the Theatre World Award. The production won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for Richardson. It ran for 54 performances.

• 2011: The play was produced at the Donmar Warehouse, London, running from 4 August 2011 to 8 October 2011, with Ruth Wilson as Anna, Jude Law as Mat and David Hayman as Chris. It was positively received by critics, with mostly 4 and 5 star reviews, and it won the 2012 Olivier Award for "best revival".

Adaptations

Main article: Anna Christie (film)

In 1923 Anna Christie was adapted by Bradley King for a film and directed by John Griffith Wray and Thomas H. Ince with stars Blanche Sweet, William Russell, George F. Marion and Eugenie Besserer.

Another adaptation by Frances Marion was released in 1930 directed by Clarence Brown, starring Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion and Marie Dressler. This pre-Code film used the marketing slogan "Garbo Talks!", as it was her first talkie. Her first spoken line has become her most famous: "Give me a whiskey with ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby." George F. Marion performed the role of Anna's father in the original Broadway production and in both the 1923 and 1930 film adaptations.

The German language film was shot after the English version and was also released in 1930. This film was adapted by Frances Marion, translated by Walter Hasenclever and directed by Jacques Feyder, also starring Garbo, with Theo Shall, Hans Junkermann, and Salka Viertel.

In 1957, a musical version by Bob Merrill, called New Girl in Town, opened on Broadway.

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
• 1993 Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Play
• 1993 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play
• 2011 Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Play

Further reading

• O'Neill, Eugene (1923). Anna Christie: A Play in Four Acts (First ed.). London: Jonathan Cape. OCLC 252007125. 

External links

• Anna Christie (premiere) at the Internet Broadway Database
• Anna Christie at the Internet Movie Database
• Production: Anna Christie - Working in the Theatre Seminar video at American Theatre Wing
• Anna Christie at the Electronic Eugene O'Neill Archive
• Anna Christie public domain audiobook from LibriVox