Hughie
Hughie is a short two-character play by Eugene O'Neill set in the lobby of a small hotel on a West Side street in Midtown Manhattan, New York, during the summer of 1928. The play is essentially a long monologue delivered by a small-time hustler named Erie Smith to the hotel's new night clerk Charlie Hughes, lamenting how Smith's luck has gone bad since the death of Hughie, Hughes' predecessor. O'Neill wrote Hughie in 1942, although it did not receive its world premiere until 1958, when it was staged in Sweden at the Royal Dramatic Theatre with Bengt Eklund as Erie Smith. It was first staged in English at the Theatre Royal, Bath, in 1963 with Burgess Meredith as Erie. The play was first presented on Broadway in 1964 starring Jason Robards as Erie and directed by José Quintero. Robards received a Tony Award nomination for his performance, and revived the production in 1975 in Berkeley, California, with Jack Dodson as Charlie Hughes. Robards and Dodson returned to perform it at the Hyde Park Festival Theatre in 1981 and with the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1991, also televising their performances in 1984 for PBS. Hughie has been