Anna Christie

Plot summary

Anna Christie is the story of a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into difficulty in turning her life around.

Act I

The first act takes place in a bar owned by Johnny the Priest and tended by Larry. Coal-barge captain Old Chris receives a letter from his daughter, a young woman he has not seen since she was 5 years old and their family lived in Sweden. They meet at the bar and she agrees to go on the coal barge with him. The rest of the play takes place on the barge.

Act II

The barge crew rescues Mat Burke and 4 other men who were in an open boat after a shipwreck. After not getting along initially, Mat and Anna fall in love.

Act III

A confrontation among Anna, Chris and Mat. Mat wants to marry Anna, Chris does not want her to marry any sailor, and Anna doesn't want either of them to think they're in charge of her. She tells them the truth about her life: she was raped while living with her mother's relatives on a Minnesota farm, then became a prostitute after some time as a nurse's aide. Mat gets furious, and he and Chris leave.

Act IV

Mat and Chris return. Anna forgives Chris for not being part of her childhood, and after a dramatic confrontation, Mat forgives Anna for being a prostitute after she promises to stop, and Chris agrees to their getting married. It turns out that Chris and Mat have both signed up for the same ship that is leaving for South Africa the next day, but they promise to return to Anna after the voyage.

Productions

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, play, now titled Anna Christie, had its premiere on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921, and ran for 177 performances before closing in April 1923. The production was staged by Arthur Hopkins and starred Pauline Lord.

Alexander Woollcott in the New York Times called it "a singularly engrossing play", and advised that "all grown-up playgoers should jot down in their notebooks the name of Anna Christie as that of a play they really ought to see."

Adaptations

In 1923 Anna Christie was adapted by Bradley King for a film directed by John Griffith Wray and Thomas H. Ince, with stars Blanche Sweet, William Russell, George F. Marion, and Eugenie Besserer.

Another adaptation by Frances Marion, released in 1930, was directed by Clarence Brown and starred Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion and Marie Dressler. This pre-Code film used the marketing slogan "Garbo Talks!", as it was her first talkie. Her first spoken line has become her most famous: "Give me a whiskey with ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby." George F. Marion performed the role of Anna's father in the original Broadway production and in both the 1923 and 1930 film adaptations.

The German language film was shot after the English version and was also released in 1930. This film was adapted by Frances Marion, translated by Walter Hasenclever and directed by Jacques Feyder, also starring Garbo, with Theo Shall, Hans Junkermann, and Salka Viertel.

In 1957, a musical version by Bob Merrill, called New Girl in Town, opened on Broadway.

In 2014, the Ningbo Yong Opera Troupe performed "Andi", a Chinese operatic adaptation, at Roberts Theatre, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa.

Awards and nominations