Fine Arts
Spring Semester

Eugene O’Neill

Eugene O’Neill was born on October 16th, 1888 in New York City. He was the son of James O’Neill who was a popular romantic actor. He was born in a Broadway hotel room where a commemorative plaque is posted on the outside wall with the inscription: “Eugene O’Neill, October 16, 1888~November 27, 1953 America’s greatest playwright was born on this night then called Barrett Hotel, Presented by Circle in the Square”. (Wikipedia, April 2010) O’Neill spent the first seven years of his life touring with his father’s theatre company. He then spent the next seven years attending a Catholic school and then a private school. By the time he entered college he was introduced to an alternative lifestyle. He dropped out of Princeton in the first year and then enrolled at Harvard for one class of playwright. This was the end of his formal education. He married in 1909 and was divorced within two years. He then went to sea in 1910. At the onset of tuberculosis he spent six months in a sanitarium. It was at this point in his life that he decided to become a playwright and began writing plays. O’Neill spent the next five years working on one-act plays. In 1918 he married his second wife. In 1920 he wrote “Beyond the Horizon” which the audience loved and took notice. His play won a Pulitzer Prize. O’Neill’s poetic dialogue and insightful views into the lives of the characters held his work apart from the less sober playwrighting of the day. (American Masters, February 2004). His two plays, “The Emperor Jones” and “The Harry Ape” follows the lives of two men and their personal struggles with life. These two plays established O’Neill as a master of the art. O’Neill’s first real box office success was “Anna Christie” (1928). This play made O’Neill’s name known far and wide. (Theatre History, 2002). In 1935 he began to work on a cycle of eleven plays which all focused on the troubles encountered with American materialism. Only two plays were established. On his final production period, O’Neill wrote “Long Day’s Journey into Night” which was a story that depicted his own family growing up. This play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. (Books and Writers, 2008) After an active career of writing and supervising the New York productions of his own works, O’Neill published only two plays between 1934 and the time of his death. He was part of the modern movement to revive the classical heroine mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese noh in some of his plays. After suffering from many health problems, he faced a severe Parkinson’s-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last ten years of his life. He spent his final years estranged from his family and the literary community. O’Neill became paralyzed and died on November 27, 1953 in a Boston hotel. Throughout his life he wrote 45 plays and won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work. By the time of his death, O’Neill was considered one of the 20th century’s greatest writers.

Works Cited American Masters. About Eugene O’Neill. (February 2004). www.pbs.org Fort, Alice B. Minute History of the Drama. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1935. pp.134. (2002) www.theatrehistory.com Liukkonen, Petri. Books and Writers. (2008). www.kirjasto.sci.fi.oneill.htm Wikipedia. Early Years of Eugene O’Neill. (April 4, 2010). http.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EugeneO%27Neal