Desire Under the Elms Closing Six Weeks Early: An Autopsy

I would have reshot this image to bring the couple's faces closer to each other, so it looked more emotional and less soft core porn.
The Goodman Theatre's production of Desire Under the Elms has a lot going for it. A classic story of a father and son both in love with the same woman. A great cast with Brian Dennehy, Carla Gugino an Pablo Schreiber. Classy direction by Robert Falls, gorgeous sets, and a perfect venue, the St. James theatre close to Shubert Alley. Yet the show has announced it is closing early. What went wrong?

Mostly, I think it was the promotion. It simply sucked. Selling O'Neill is not an easy task, and you don't do it using the same photographs that served it in Chicago, and even worse, butchering the images to make the production look like something being put on by your local community theatre group. Then, there was the one page website, the lack of any attention to viral marketing, and pretty much total ignorance of the online world in their efforts. Looks to me like they hired their pr people on either the basis of the lowest bid or nepotism. Whatever it was, it really started this show off with a handicap.

This is supposed to sell tickets? Maybe fifty years ago.

The poster shown above is awful. Wrong colors, wrong typeface, wrong everything. No clue other than the suggestive pose as to what the show is about. Then there was the slap in the face by the Tony Award nominations - there were none. Zilch. So the show is not running to the July 4th weekend, it will last only to Memorial Day, and even the New York Times is flogging discount tickets to keep it going until then. I feel bad for the producers, including Jujamcyn Theatres which owns the St. James which sunk a quarter mil in it to bring it to Broadway.

In these tough economic times, the one budget you do not cut is marketing and promotion. Selling tickets is harder than ever, and you need real pros to be sure the whole investment doesn't go down the toilet. This show died from a lack of understanding just what motivates audiences. It could have gone down in the Broadway record book as a successful O'Neill revival.

Damn shame, too. It could have been saved.

Goodman's Desire Under the Elms Extended to March 1

The brilliant actor Brian Dennahy is commanding in Desire Under The Elms at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Photo by Liz Lauren

Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece, Desire Under the Elms has never been more overtly sensual and provocative as in the hands of the Goodman's Artistic Director Robert Falls. The reviews have been sensational, and demand for tickets so great that the show has been extended to March 1. However, Carla Gugino's schedule does not allow her to stay with the production, so after February 17 her role will be played by her understudy, Amy J. Carle. Gugino departs the production to fulfill press commitments for the releases of her films Watchmen and Race to Witch Mountain, both opening in early March.

Pictured are (l to r) Carla Gugino (Abbie Putnam) and Pablo Schreiber (Eben Cabot). Liz Lauren Photo.

Brian Dennehy has appeared often at the Goodman. (Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey Into Night) Pablo Schreiber is another veteran Goodman regular (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Awake and Sing!), as is Boris McGiver (The Wire). Daniel Stewart Sherman rounds out the cast and was recently seen in Broadway's Cyrano de Bergerac.

Pictured in Goodman Theatre's production of Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill, directed by Robert Falls are (l to r) Pablo Schreiber (Eben Cabot), Brian Dennehy (Ephraim Cabot) and Carla Gugino (Abbie Putnam). Liz Lauren photo

Desire Under the Elms is the centerpiece of the Goodman's landmark theatrical event, "A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century," Desire Under the Elms has been hailed by critics as "enormous, powerful" (Chicago Tribune), "blistering [and] bold" (Chicago Sun-Times). Performances are scheduled through March 1 in the Goodman's 856-seat Albert Ivar Theatre.

For ticket information, visit GoodmanTheatre.org or call 312.443.3800.

Dennehy and Falls, O'Neill and the Goodman are entwined.

Over the past 20 years at the Goodman, Brian Dennehy has delivered towering performances in four O’Neill works, each directed by Robert Falls. The first collaboration was The Iceman Cometh (1990), the epic portrait of hope and disillusionment with Dennehy starring as hardware salesman and pipedream-buster Theodore “Hickey” Hickman—with a cast that included Hope Davis, Denis O’Hare, Ernest Perry, Jr. and James Cromwell.

The production was named by Time and USA Today one of the 10 best American theater productions of the 1991/1992 season and was subsequently hailed as the highpoint of the 33rd annual Dublin Theatre Festival.
Pictured in Robert Falls' 1996 production of A Touch of the Poet by Eugene O'Neill are Brian Dennehy (Con Melody) and Deanna Dunagan (Deborah Harford). Photo by Eric Y. Exit.

In 1996, Falls and Dennehy returned to O’Neill—this time with the 1936 tale of tragic self-delusion, A Touch of the Poet, featuring Dennehy as the tyrannical Con Melody, Pamela Payton-Wright as his long-suffering wife, and Jenny Bacon as his rebellious daughter.
Pictured in Robert Falls' 2002 production of Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill are Pamela Payton-Wright (Mary Tyrone) and Brian Dennehy (James Tyrone). Photo by Eric Y. Exit.

Six years later in 2002, O’Neill’s masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, arrived on the Goodman stage with Dennehy as the vain, selfish patriarch James Tyrone. The Broadway remount of the production two years later—featuring Dennehy, Vanessa Redgrave, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard—won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, with Dennehy and Redgrave each earning the prizes for Best Actor and Actress.
Pictured in Robert Falls' 2004 production of Hughie by Eugene O'Neill is Brian Dennehy (Erie Smith). Photo by Michael Brosilow.

Most recently, in 2004, Falls staged Hughie, the posthumously published one-act, with Dennehy as the big-time talker and small-time gambler Erie Smith—a production for which director and actor reunited at Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival, June 18 – August 31, with a subsequent production at Long Wharf Theatre. Desire Under the Elms marks their fifth collaboration on the works of O’Neill.