History Theatre / StrangeInterlude

* BreakingTheFourthWall: The makers of the film chose to present the [[InnerMonologue Inner Monologs]] as voiceovers. The first one starts with Charlie looking straight at the camera. After that, the fourth wall remains intact as the voiceovers play while the characters' eyes look somewhere else.
%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

''Strange Interlude'' is a 1932 play by Creator/EugeneONeill.

Website/TheOtherWiki calls ''Strange Interlude'' "an experimental play". For starters, it is very long, extending for ''nine'' acts. Additionally, in this play the characters actually verbalize their internal thoughts to the audience, with their inner monologue taking up more of the running time than the dialogue between characters. In some productions the actors hold up masks when delivering their dialogue to other characters, to make clear the distinction between spoken dialogue and inner monologue. This aspect of the play was memorably parodied in the stage and screen comedy ''Theatre/AnimalCrackers'' by [[Creator/MarxBrothers GrouchoMarx]].

Website/TheOtherWiki calls ''Strange Interlude'' "an experimental play". For starters, it is very long, extending for ''nine'' acts. Additionally, in this play the characters actually verbalize their internal thoughts to the audience, with their inner monologue taking up more of the running time than the dialogue between characters. In some productions the actors hold up masks when delivering their dialogue to other characters, to make clear the distinction between spoken dialogue and inner monologue.

Wiki/TheOtherWiki calls ''Strange Interlude'' "an experimental play". For starters, it is very long, extending for ''nine'' acts. Additionally, in this play the characters actually verbalize their internal thoughts to the audience, with their inner monologue taking up more of the running time than the dialogue between characters. In some productions the actors hold up masks when delivering their dialogue to other characters, to make clear the distinction between spoken dialogue and inner monologue.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Even in UsefulNotes/ThePreCodeEra the filmmakers couldn't be as candid as the play was about Nina's regret over not sleeping with Gordon. There is a scene where Nina talks about "what I didn't give him" and then talks about how she'd imagined getting married and having babies. Ned later refers to Nina's sleeping around with patients as "necking and spooning."

* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: Charles's desire for Nina coexists uncomfortably with his terror of sexuality in general. He remembers with shame a teenaged encounter with a prostituted, and Ned doesn't tell him about Nina's sexual activities due to concern over Charles's "ladylike soul." In one scene Charles chastely kisses Nina's hair and decides he is "no more ashamed of being pure."

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Even in UsefulNotes/ThePreCodeEra the filmmakers couldn't be as candid as the play was about Nina's regret over not sleeping with Charlie. There is a scene where Nina talks about "what I didn't give him" and then talks about how she'd imagined getting married and having babies. Ned later refers to Nina's sleeping around with patients as "necking and spooning."

TheOtherWiki calls ''Strange Interlude'' "an experimental play". For starters, it is very long, extending for ''nine'' acts. Additionally, in this play the characters actually verbalize their internal thoughts to the audience, with their inner monologue taking up more of the running time than the dialogue between characters. In some productions the actors hold up masks when delivering their dialogue to other characters, to make clear the distinction between spoken dialogue and inner monologue.

Eventually Nina, utterly unaware of the fact that her father's old friend Charles Marsden loves and adores her, marries an amiable dunce named Sam Evans. Nina gets pregnant by Sam but then finds out that insanity runs in Sam's family. So she aborts the baby and instead gets pregnant by a family friend, Dr. Edmund "Ned" Darrell--and in the process falls in love with Ned.

''Strange Interlude'' was adapted into a 1932 film starring Norma Shearer and Creator/ClarkGable.

* AManIsNotAVirgin: Charlie is disgusted when Sam admits that he never had sex with a woman before marrying Nina.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Even in UsefulNotes/ThePreCodeEra the filmmakers couldn't be as candid as the play was about Nina's regret over not sleeping with Charlie. There is a scene where Nina talks about "what I didn't give him" and then talks about how she'd imagined getting married and having babies.

* TitleDrop: A bitter old Nina thinks that "the present is an interlude … strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness we are living!" And later, right at the end, she says "Strange interlude! Yes, our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father!"

* TitleDrop: A bitter old Nina thinks that "the present is an interlude … strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness we are living!"

--> '''Nina''': But she is ashamed. It's adultery. It's wrong.

Eventually Nina, utterly unaware of the fact that her father's old friend Charles Marsden loves and adores her, marries an amiable dunce named Sam Evans. Nina gets pregnant by Sam but then finds out that insanity runs in Sam's family. So she aborts the baby and instead gets pregnant by a family friend, Dr. Edmund Darrell--and in the process falls in love with Edmund.

* TheLostLenore: Nina can't get past Gordon, who is already dead when the play starts. She sleeps with wounded soldiers because she feels like she has to, after never getting to sleep with Gordon. Charles, for his part, is jealous of a dead man.

* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: Charles's desire for Nina coexists uncomfortably with his terror of sexuality in general. He remembers with shame a teenaged encounter with a prostituted, and Edmund doesn't tell him about Nina's sexual activities due to concern over Charles's "ladylike soul." In one scene Charles chastely kisses Nina's hair and decides he is "no more ashamed of being pure."

* ReallyGetsAround: Nina really sluts it up when working as a nurse. Edmund hesitates to tell a sensitive Charles "the raw truth about her promiscuity."

* ThirdPersonPerson: Nina and Edmund both start referring to her in the third person when they're trying to talk themselves into having sex, so she can have a baby, which she will pass off as Sam's.

* ShoutOut: When Nina is unusually cheerful, a pleased Charles quotes ''Literature/PippaPasses'' and the famous line "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world!"