Anna Christie

Summary

1963 BBC production of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie.

Theatre play

Anna Christie by Eugene O’Neill [more information]

Play synopsis

'Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around.' Anna hasn’t seen her father, a coal-barge captain, since she was five. They meet at a bar and she returns to the coal-barge with him. The crew rescues some men who were shipwrecked, and Anna falls in love with one of them, Mat. She tells the truth about her life: how she was raped and then became a prostitite. After much discussion, Anna forgives her father for not being part of her childhood and Mat accepts her former life as a prostitute. Chris and Mat promise to return to Anna after a sea-voyage to South Africa. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Christie.

Production history

'O’Neill’s first version of this play, begun in January 1919, was titled Chris Christopherson and performed as Chris in out-of-town tryouts. O’Neill revised it radically, changing the barge captain’s daughter Anna from a pure woman needing to be protected into a prostitute who finds reformation and love from life on the sea. The new version, now titled Anna Christie, had its premiere on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre on 2 November 1921, and ran for 177 performances before closing in April 1923. O’Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this work.' Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Christie.

Date of transmission

Friday 4 January 1963

Time

9.25-10.40pm

Channel

BBC Television

Production company

BBC

Credits

Producer

Rudolph Cartier

Film Cameraman

A. A. Englander

Playwright

Eugene O’Neill

Adapted for Television by

John O’Toole

Designer

Clifford Hatts

Costumes

Angela Flanders

Make-up

Rosemary Ross

Film Editor

Pamela Bosworth

Cast

Joseph Furst	Chris Christopherson
Grant Holden	A Sailor
Horace James	Dave
Andrew Keir	Mat Burke
David Lander	Johnny-the-Priest
Peter Mason	Johnson
Philip Oxman	Larry
Madge Ryan	Marthy Owen
Billie Whitelaw	Anna Christie

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

American drama; nautical theme; prostitution; sea-faring; sexual violence

Print sources

Title

Radio Times, 27 December 1963 (Magazine)

Linking notes

article, p. 45; listing, p. 47