Eugene+O’Neill

Eugene Gladston O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of realism. They also are among the first to include characters on the fringes of society. O'Neill was born in a hotel room in Times Square. He was the son of Irish actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan. After being suspended from Princeton University, he spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie died within three years of one another, and O'Neill turned to writing as a form of escape. During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party founder John Reed. It wasn't until he was recovering from tuberculosis that he decided to devote himself full time to writing plays. O'Neill had previously been employed by the //New London Telegraph//, writing poetry as well as reporting. His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters. O'Neill's first published play, //Beyond the Horizon//, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great applause, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was //The Emperor Jones// commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti. His best-known plays include //Anna Christie,// //Desire Under the Elms//, //Strange Interlude//, //Mourning Becomes Electra//, and his only well-known comedy, //Ah, Wilderness!// a re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had happened. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play //The Iceman Cometh// was produced. He was also part of the modern movement to revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909 to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. The years of their marriage—during which the couple had two children, Shane and Oona. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey. Although they separated several times, they never divorced. After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinson’s-like tremor in his hands, which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life. As his health worsened, O’Neill wrote three largely autobiographical plays, //The Iceman Cometh//, //Long Day's Journey Into Night//, and // A Moon for the Misbegotten //. He managed to complete //Moon for the Misbegotten// in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. O'Neill died in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65.


 * List of plays**


 * //Bread and Butter//, 1914
 * //Servitude//, 1914
 * //The Personal Equation//, 1915
 * //Now I Ask You//, 1916
 * //Beyond the Horizon//, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
 * //The Straw//, 1919
 * //Chris Christophersen//, 1919
 * //Gold//, 1920
 * //Anna Christie//, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
 * //The Emperor Jones//, 1920
 * //Diff'rent//, 1921
 * //The First Man//, 1922
 * //The Hairy Ape//, 1922
 * //The Fountain//, 1923
 * //Marco Millions//, 1923–25
 * //All God's Chillun Got Wings//, 1924
 * //Welded//, 1924
 * //Desire Under the Elms//, 1925
 * //Lazarus Laughed//, 1925–26
 * //The Great God Brown//, 1926
 * //Strange Interlude//, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
 * //Dynamo//, 1929
 * //Mourning Becomes Electra//, 1931
 * //Ah, Wilderness!//, 1933
 * //Days Without End//, 1933
 * //The Iceman Cometh//, 1939
 * //Hughie//, 1941
 * //Long Day's Journey Into Night//, 1941,
 * //A Moon for the Misbegotten//, 1941-1943
 * //A Touch of the Poet//, 1942, first performed 1958
 * //More Stately Mansions//, 1967
 * //The Calms of Capricorn//, 1983

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