Designing <i>Desire Under the Elms</i>

ABSTRACT Eugene O’Neill was never satisfied with designs for Desire Under the Elms, apparently not even Robert Edmond Jones’s. The playwright complained to Kenneth Macgowan, “Has Desire ever been produced as I wrote it? Never! There have never been the elm trees of my play, characters almost, and . . . the house as character, the acts as smooth developing wholes have never existed.” In this interview, with accompanying visuals of their research and design processes, scenic designers Andrea Ball, Gennie Neuman-Lambert, and Richard Finklestein explore the play in light of Jones’s iconic 1924 scenic design.