O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, ultimately sliding into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well known (Ah, Wilderness!).[2][3] Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Birthplace plaque (1500 Broadway, northeast corner of 43rd and Broadway, New York City), presented byCircle in the Square
O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in a hotel, the Barrett House, on what was then Longacre Square (nowTimes Square) in New York City.[4] A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957.[4][5] The site is now occupied by1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops, and theABC Studios.[6]
Portrait of O'Neill as a child, c. 1893
He was the son ofIrish immigrant actorJames O'Neill andMary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of her third son Eugene.[7] Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company accompanied by his mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent toSt. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in theRiverdale section of the Bronx.[8] In 1900 he became a day student at theDe La Salle Institute on59th Street in Manhattan.[9]
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at theMonte Cristo Cottage inNew London, Connecticut. He also briefly attendedBetts Academy in Stamford.[10] He attendedPrinceton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes,[11] been suspended for "conduct code violations",[12] or "for breaking a window",[13] or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of ProfessorWoodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.[14]
Statue of O'Neill as a boy, sitting and writing, overlooking the harbor ofNew London, Connecticut
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression, alcoholism, and despair. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action.[15] O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (whodrank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
After returning to New York and living in poverty, O'Neill attempted suicide in 1912 in his room at Jimmy-the-Priest's boarding house and saloon, which — together with the Hell Hole — would one day become the setting for his playThe Iceman Cometh. That same year, he and his first wife Kathleen divorced, and he contractedtuberculosis. It was during his recovery at asanatorium — which he came to regard as his "rebirth" — that he determined he would become a playwright. "I want to be an artist or nothing," he said.
After recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to entering the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece,Long Day's Journey into Night).[9] O'Neill had previously been employed by theNew London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, O'Neill studied atHarvard University withGeorge Pierce Baker, who ran a famous course called “Workshop 47” that taught the fundamentals of playwriting, but left after one year.[9]
During the 1910s, O'Neill was a regular on theGreenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notablyCommunist Labor Party of America founderJohn Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writerLouise Bryant.[16] O'Neill was portrayed byJack Nicholson in the 1981 filmReds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed byDiane Keaton.His involvement with theProvincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration.[9]Susan Glaspell describes a reading ofBound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husbandGeorge Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene tookBound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished."[17] The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street inGreenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such asThe Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.[9]
O'Neill's first play,Bound East for Cardiff, premiered at this theatre on a wharf inProvincetown, Massachusetts.
In an early one-act play,The Web, written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays.[18] In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1935.[21] In 1936 O'Neill received theNobel Prize in Literature after he had been nominated that year byHenrik Schück, member of theSwedish Academy.[22] O'Neill was profoundly influenced by the work of Swedish writerAugust Strindberg,[23] and, upon receiving the Nobel Prize, dedicated much of his acceptance speech to him.[24] In conversation withRussel Crouse, O'Neill said that "the Strindberg part of the speech is no 'telling tale' to please the Swedes with a polite gesture. It is absolutely sincere. [...] And it's absolutely true that I am proud of the opportunity to acknowledge my debt to Strindberg thus publicly to his people".[25] Before the speech was sent toStockholm, O'Neill read it to his friendSophus Keith Winther. As he was reading, he suddenly interrupted himself with the comment: "I wish immortality were a fact, for then some day I would meet Strindberg". When Winther objected that "that would scarcely be enough to justify immortality", O'Neill answered quickly and firmly: "It would be enough for me".[25]
After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now renowned playThe Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year'sA Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before the piece came to be considered as among his best works.[citation needed]
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son,Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917 O'Neill metAgnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents inPoint Pleasant, New Jersey.[27] The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived inConnecticut andBermuda and had two children, Shane andOona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoirPart of a Long Story. They divorced on July 2, 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actressCarlotta Monterey. O'Neill and Monterey married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.[28]
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted topotassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943 O'Neill disowned his daughterOona for marrying the English actor, director, and producerCharlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.[29] Through his daughter, O'Neill had eight grandchildren whom he never met.
He also had distant relationships with his sons.Eugene O'Neill Jr., aYale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda,Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was also disowned by his father before committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate).[30] In 1950 O'Neill joinedThe Lambs, the famed theater club.
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severeParkinson's-like tremor in his hands that made it impossible for him to write during the last ten years of his life; he trieddictation but found himself unable to compose that way.[citation needed] While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a collection of works he called "the Cycle", chronicling American life spanning from 1755 to 1932. Only two of the eleven plays O'Neill proposed,A Touch of the Poet andMore Stately Mansions, were completed.[31] As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays,The Iceman Cometh,Long Day's Journey into Night, andA Moon for the Misbegotten, which he completed in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. The book "Love and Admiration and Respect": The O'Neill-Commins Correspondence" includes an extended account written by Saxe Commins, O'Neill's publisher, in which he talks of "snatches of dialogue" between Carlotta and O'Neill over the disappearance of a group of manuscripts that O'Neill had brought with him from San Francisco. "When the table was cleared I learned the cause of the tension; the manuscripts were lost. They had disappeared mysteriously during the day and there was no clue to their whereabouts."[31]
O'Neill stamp issued in 1967
O'Neill died at the Sheraton Hotel (nowBoston University'sKilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston on November 27, 1953, at age 65. As he was dying, he whispered: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."[32] He is interred in theForest Hills Cemetery inBoston'sJamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical playLong Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957.[33] It is widely considered his finest play. Other posthumously published works includeA Touch of the Poet (1958) andMore Stately Mansions (1967).
In 2000 a team of researchers studying O'Neill's autopsy report concluded that he died ofcerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.[34]
Tomorrow, 1917. A short-story published inThe Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.[40]
S.O.S., 1918. A short-story based on his 1913 one-act playWarnings.
The Ancient Mariner, 1923, a dramatic arrangement ofColeridge's poem.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.[41]
Poems: 1912-1944, published 1980.
Eugene O'Neill at Work: Newly Released Ideas for Plays, published 1981. Annotated notebooks written between 1918 and 1943 containing notes on plays published, unpublished, and unfinished.
The Calms of Capricorn, unfinished play, published in 1983.[42]
The Unknown O'Neill: Unpublished Or Unfamiliar Writings of Eugene O'Neill, published in 1988.
The Unfinished Plays: Notes forThe Visit of Malatesta,The Last Conquest andBlind Alley Guy, published in 1988.[43]
^The New York Times, August 25, 2003: "Next year Playwrights Theater will present an unproduced O'Neill comedy,Now I Ask You, a comic spin on Ibsen'sHedda Gabler."
^abcThe Eugene O'Neill Foundation newsletter: "Now I Ask You, along withThe Movie Man, ... is the only surviving comedy from O'Neill's early years."
^Londré, Felicia (2016). "Eugene O'neill: A Life in Four Acts by Robert M. Dowling, and: Eugene O'neill: The Contemporary Reviews ed. by Jackson R. Bryer and Robert M. Dowiling (review)".Theatre History Studies.35:351–353.doi:10.1353/ths.2016.0027.S2CID193596557.
^Title as in original typescript and title page of Modern Library edition
^"Exorcism".Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill. Chronicle of Higher Education. October 19, 2011. RetrievedOctober 22, 2011. (The play, set in 1912, is based on O'Neill's suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O'Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)
^"Exorcism".The New Yorker. October 10, 2011. RetrievedJanuary 6, 2024.
^O'Neill, Eugene (1917).The Seven Arts (June 1917 ed.). New York: The Seven Arts Publishing Co. RetrievedMarch 5, 2020.[permanent dead link]
Black, Stephen A. (2002).Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy. Yale University press.ISBN0-300-09399-3.
Bryan, George B. andWolfgang Mieder. 1995.The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Clark, Barrett H. (November 1932). "Aeschylus and O'Neill".The English Journal.XXI (9):699–710.doi:10.2307/804473.JSTOR804473.
Clark, Barrett H. (1926).Eugene O'Neill: The Man and His Plays. Dover Publications, Inc. New York.
Dowling, Robert M. (2014).Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts. Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-17033-7.
Eugene O’Neill e Lars Norén: “A Swedish-American Kinship” by Anna Airoldi
Postmodern Considerations of Nietzstchean Perspectivism in Selected Works of Eugene O'Neill by Eric Mathew Levin
The Pipe Dreams and Primitivism: Eugene O'Neill and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity by Donald P. Gagnon
The Discovery of the Self in Eugene O'Neill'sThe Emperor Jones andThe Iceman Cometh and Joseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness and "To-morrow": A Comparative Study by Mohamed Amine Dekkiche
"Darker Brother" in Stage-Center: Eugene O'Neill's Quest for Racial Equity in Three Decades (1913-1939) of American Drama by Shahed Ahmed
