Susannah Wise

Ah, Wilderness! Young Vic 4 stars In his 1932 play Ah, Wilderness, Eugene O’Neill returns to familiar themes such as family life, alcoholism and thwarted idealism but it stands out among his work for having a lightness of touch and event moments of comedy. Set in Connecticut on July 4 in 1906, it is a nostalgic family drama that is said to be O’Neill’s reinvention of his own less than happy childhood brought up by a distant, drug-addicted mother. In Ah, Wilderness!, the central character of 17-year-old Richard Miller is roughly the same age that young Eugene would have been in 1906. But, instead of a dysfunctional family, there is a sweet, loving mother and a father who is stern but a big softy underneath, both proud of their poetry-loving son. The play’s charm is beautifully captured in a new, trimmed-down production directed by Natalie Abrahami at the Young Vic. … Read more