“The tragedy of man is perhaps the only significant thing about him. What I am after, is to get an audience to leave the theater with an exultant feeling, from seeing somebody on the stage facing life, fighting against the eternal odds, not conquering but perhaps inevitably being conquered.” – Eugene O’Neill

I am thankful that even though Eugene O’Neill was born far from Ireland (he was born in a hotel in Times Square), his Irish ancestry still qualified his play The Emperor Jones to be shown at the Irish Repertory Theater in Chelsea. John Douglas Thompson (shown here) plays the protagonist, Brutus Jones, with stunning reality, displaying a deep, dark part of humanity.

I believe that The Emperor Jones was really a play about human nature more than Brutus Jones’ story of escaping from slavery and ending up as an Emperor on an island in the Caribbean. O’Neill devoted more time to showing Jones’ psychological character than his actual feats, explorations, and exploitations. His past was not seen, but rather alluded to. It allows the audience to see Jones’ true character rather than simply the things he had done. I saw Jones’ loathing of being slave in America, and his projection of it onto his Caribbean subjects; his guilt; his hidden fear of being overthrown and his insecurities as a powerful man. This psychology makes the play much more interesting than if O’Neill had just written about Jones’ stories as an oppressive Emperor.

The most poignant aspect of the play was seeing Jones’ arrogant façade collapse. He slowly lost different aspects of his status as an Emperor, such as symbolically losing items of clothing, once saying that his regal coat was “like a straight-jacket.” At the beginning of the play, as far as Jones is concerned, he was living the best life he possibly could. Jones marveled at his wit and intelligence, and scoffed at those who he thought were lesser beings. He was quite content with swindling the natives under his rule, which was interesting because even though he was a slave in the States, he was perfectly happy with oppressing others once he obtained power. The rest of the play shows Jones deteriorating mentally and physically, and John Douglas Thompson’s wonderful acting shows this decay extremely well.

Besides Thompson, there was other good acting too. Rich Foucheux portrayed Henry Smithers, a white thief/trader working under the command of Jones. The Emperor Jones opened with an interesting long dialogue between Smithers and Jones, during which one really sees the characters of both men. The Irish Repertory Theater also used great puppets and human scenery (people dressed up as trees), both of which really added to the production.

I would not say that I left the theater with an “exultant” feeling, instead more of a thoughtful one. I found myself pondering about human nature; I was thinking about Jones’ crumbling persona. Thought provoking theater is great, and O’Neill seems to have mastered that with The Emperor Jones.