Eugene o neill biography

In O'Neill married Agnes Boulton. They had a son, Shane, and a daughter, Oona. Meanwhile, O'Neill met his son Eugene, Jr. O'Neill's family died in close succession: his fathermotherand brother Following this tumult, his marriage was troubled; O'Neill had fallen in love with Carlotta Monterey. In he left Agnes Boulton, divorced inand soon married Carlotta.

In spite of pressures in his personal life, O'Neill was incredibly productive. In the 15 years following the appearance of Beyond the Horizon, 21 plays were produced. Always daring in his conceptions, always willing to experiment, he brought forth both brilliant successes and atrocious failures. O'Neill's successful plays reveal interesting experimentation—apart from Anna Christiea rather standardly organized and realistic play with some romantic overtones which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, and Ah, Wilderness!

The Emperor Jones is a superb theatrical piece in which Brutus Jones moves from reality, to conscious memories of his past, to subconscious roots of his ancient heritage, as he flees for his life. The play ends in the reality of his death. Another expressionistic piece, The Hairy Apetraces the path of a burly stoker shocked into self-awareness by a decadent society woman, as he tries to find out where he belongs in the world.

Two plays deal with the human propensity to hide behind masks. In The Great God Brownmasks are actually used. On his death, Dion Anthony wills his mask to William Brown, who then lives under the impact of dual masks. In Strange Interludea massive treatment of the many roles of women as seen in the life of Nina Leeds, O'Neill used spoken "asides" interior monologues to disclose his characters' hidden and normally unspoken thoughts.

For this play he received his third Pulitzer Prize.

Eugene o neill biography: America's First Major Playwright.

The final successes stem from O'Neill's desire to reach the essence of tragedy. In Desire under the Elmshe probed the tumult of passions burning deep on a New England farm. The peace which Eben and Abby find in their love is decidedly convincing. Ephraim's obdurate persistence also carries the ring of universal truth. The ancient guilt of the house of Atreus is converted into Freudian terms in the depiction of the Mannon family.

O'Neill's "Electra," Lavinia, is powerfully characterized, and her final expiation is a moving end to a most worthy play. A grim and repulsive drama, Diff'renta rather psychopathic portrait of a sexually obsessed woman, garnered mixed reviews.

Eugene o neill biography: Eugene O'Neill, foremost American dramatist

The Strawa story of love and selfishness dating back to O'Neill's experiences in the sanitarium, was generally accepted. Though All God's Chillun Got Wings received tremendous publicity before its opening, O'Neill failed to deeply penetrate the realms of myth and bigotry. However, he did achieve a Job-like quality for the black husband.

Babbitt and Marco Polo were aligned in a satiric and poetic expression in Marco Millions The play's best aspect is its pageantry; the poetry is somewhat disappointing. Lazarus Laughed was not produced commercially in New York. Essentially a religious-philosophical epic, the play has some interesting scenes but a ponderous, turgid style.

Carlotta Monterey brought a sense of order to O'Neill's life. His health deteriorated rapidly from on, but her care helped him remain productive, though their marriage was not without furor. In addition to the physical and psychological burdens of his poor health, O'Neill was also disturbed by his continued inability to establish relationships with his children.

Eugene, Jr. Shane became addicted to drugs. Oona was ignored by her father after her marriage to actor Charlie Chaplin. The tragic lack of communication for which O'Neill had accused his father was a major flaw in his own relationships with his children. Indeed, he even excluded Shane and Oona from his will. When O'Neill knew that death was near, one of his final actions was to tear up six of his unfinished cycle plays rather than have them rewritten by someone else.

Eugene o neill biography: Born on October 16,

These plays, tentatively entitled "A Tale of Possessors Self-dispossessed," were part of a great cycle of 9 to 11 plays which would follow the lives of one family in America. O'Neill's health prevented him from completing them. He died on Nov. The Iceman Cometh, with its exhibition of pipe dreams in Harry Hope's saloon, fascinated audiences and overcame almost universal complaints about its length.

Long Day's Journey into Nightautobiographical in its totality, devoid of theatrical effects, utterly scathing in its insistence on truth, showed O'Neill at the height of his dramatic power. It received the Pulitzer Prize. A Moon for the Misbegotten and A Touch of the Poetinevitably measured against the brilliance of Long Day's Journey into Night, were found to be of a lesser magnitude.

Among all his late plays with their searching realism, A Touch of the Poet has the strongest elements of romantic warmth. After leaving Princeton, O'Neill floundered for a time. He took several sea voyages, ran around town with brother James and indulged heavily in alcohol.

Eugene o neill biography: Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, –

InO'Neill battled tuberculosis. While recuperating from his illness, he found his calling as a playwright, finding inspiration from such European dramatists as August Strindberg and later enrolling in a writing class at Harvard University. O'Neill had his first play produced in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in Bound East for Cardiffa one-act play that was staged in New York later that year.

Also inO'Neill made a second attempt at domestic bliss. He married fellow writer Agnes Boulton, and the couple eventually had two children together, son Shane and daughter Oona. O'Neill took the eugene o neill biography world by storm in with Beyond the Horizonwhich won a Pulitzer Prize. InO'Neill brought his drama Anna Christie to the Broadway stage; this tale of a prostitute's return home netted the playwright his second Pulitzer Prize.

O'Neill suffered a personal loss with the death of his brother the following year. By this time, the playwright had also lost both of his parents. But O'Neill's private struggles seemed to aid him in creating greater dramatic works for the stage, including Desire Under the Elms and Strange Interlude Around this time, O'Neill left his second wife and quickly began a relationship with Carlotta Monterey, whom he married in Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays.

At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success. O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizonopened on Broadway in to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Joneswhich ran on Broadway in and obliquely commented on the U.

O'Neill was elected to the American Philosophical Society in It is absolutely sincere. As he was eugene o neill biography, 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".

The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works. He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed. InO'Neill met Agnes Boultona successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jerseyafter their marriage.

O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife. He moved to Danville, Californiain and lived there until In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromideand the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.

InO'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was He never saw Oona again. He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr. 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 disowned by his father before also 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. 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 that made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he tried dictation but found himself unable to compose that way.

They had disappeared mysteriously during the day and there was no clue to their whereabouts. As he was dying, he whispered: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room. InCarlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long 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 Ina team of researchers studying O'Neill's autopsy report concluded that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophya rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease. George C. Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer.

The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. O'Neill's innovative writing continued with Strange Interlude. This play was revolutionary in style and length: when first produced, it opened in late afternoon, broke for a dinner intermission, and ended at the conventional hour.

Techniques new to the modern theatre included spoken asides or soliloquies to express the characters' hidden thoughts. The play is the saga of Everywoman, who ritualistically acts out her roles as daughter, wife, mistress, mother, and platonic friend. Although it was innovative and startling inits obvious Freudian overtones have rapidly dated the work.

One of O'Neill's enduring masterpieces, Mourning Becomes Electra, represents the playwright's most complete use of Greek forms, themes, and characters. Based on the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus, it was itself three plays in one. To give the story contemporary credibility, O'Neill set the play in the New England of the Civil War period, yet he retained the forms and the conflicts of the Greek characters: the heroic leader returning from war; his adulterous wife, who murders him; his jealous, repressed daughter, who avenges him through the murder of her mother; and his weak, incestuous son, who is goaded by his sister first to matricide and then to suicide.

Following a long succession of tragic visions, O'Neill's only comedy, Ah, Wilderness! Written in a lighthearted, nostalgic mood, the work was inspired in part by the playwright's mischievous desire to demonstrate that he could portray the comic as well as the tragic side of life. Significantly, the play is set in the same place and period, a small New England town in the early s, as his later tragic masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night.

Dealing with the growing pains of a sensitive, adolescent boy, Ah, Wilderness! The Iceman Cometh, the most complex and perhaps the finest of the O'Neill tragedies, followed inalthough it did not appear on Broadway until Laced with subtle religious symbolism, the play is a study of man's need to cling to his hope for a better life, even if he must delude himself to do so.

Even in his last writings, O'Neill's youth continued to absorb his attention. The posthumous production of Long Day's Journey into Night brought to light an agonizingly autobiographical play, one of O'Neill's greatest. It is straightforward in style but shattering in its depiction of the agonized relations between father, mother, and two sons.

Spanning one day in the life of a family, the play strips away layer after layer from each of the four central figures, revealing the mother as a defeated drug addict, the father as a man frustrated in his career and failed as a husband and father, the older son as a bitter alcoholic, and the younger son as a tubercular, disillusioned youth with only the slenderest chance for physical and spiritual survival.

O'Neill's tragic view of life was perpetuated in his relationships with the three women he married--two of whom he divorced--and with his three children.