|
The
Fountain
1921
O'Neill's story of Ponce de Leon's
search for the fountain of youth is a long historical romance that he
first wrote in verse and later subdued into a poetic prose. The musical
score for the first production was composed by Macklin Marrow, the
conductor-composer who supervised the music for plays produced by
O'Neill, Kenneth Macgowan and Robert Edmond Jones at the Greenwich
Village Theatre. Marrow had appeared as the malicious fiddler in the
party scene in Desire Under the
Elms.
The text
calls for the thematic song of eternal return ("Love is a flower /
Forever blooming. / Life is a fountain / Forever leaping...") and one
titled "Cities of Gold," that O'Neill described loosely as "a sort of
chanty." There is also a "Te Deum" and an Indian chant to a drum. The
score no longer exists. |
