June 24, 2011

The Reviews are In! O'Neill Windows are a hit!

The new Hirschfeld/O'Neill Window installation at NYU's Kimmel Center has been up for a little more than a week, and already it is a certiifed hit with critics, crowds and O'Neill scholars. The Eighth International Eugene O'Neill Scholars Conference opened Thursday night with accolade upon accolade showered upon the installation, by O'Neillians around the world. The enthusiasm was contagious.

The first published review of the windows came the same day in a wonderful award-winning "strolling guide to New York City" blog, Walking Off The Big Apple. Author Terri Tynes writes up the windows. "Such a lively and fun spirit infuses the caricatures that you would never figure Hirschfeld would make a great interpreter of the work of the more somber playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) much less be a good friend. A wonderful display of Hirschfeld's interpretation of O'Neill in NYU's Kimmel Center Window Gallery in the Village proves otherwise. Each window is devoted to one play, illustrated with Hirschfeld's documentation of multiple productions over decades - famous originals, beginning with Strange Interlude (1928) as well as many successful revivals, including those on TV and on film. He outlived his playwright friend by nearly five decades, interpreting O'Neill through many posthumous productions, including the original production of the autobiographical Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956)."

As she points out, "Because this is a window gallery facing the street, it's open all day and night"

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