Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts

584 Pages·2014·4.85 MB·English

by  Robert M. Dowling

Eugene O’Neill
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Eugene
O’Neill
A Life in Four Acts
ROBERT M. DOWLING
New Haven and London
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of
Philip Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College
Copyright © 2014 by RobertM. Dowling.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or
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Designed by James J. Johnson.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dowling, RobertM., 1970– author.
Eugene O’Neill : a life in four acts / RobertM. Dowling.
pages cm
Summary: “A major new biography of the Nobel Prize–winning playwright
whose brilliantly original plays revolutionized American theater.”
— Provided by publisher.
Summary: “This extraordinary new biography fully captures the intimacies of Eugene
O’Neill’s tumultuous life and the profound impact of his work on American drama. Robert
M. Dowling innovatively recounts O’Neill’s life in four acts, thus highlighting how the stories
he told for the stage interweave with his actual life stories. Each episode also uncovers how
O’Neill’s work was utterly intertwined with, and galvanized by, the culture and history of
his time. Much is new in this extensively researched book: connections between O’Neill’s
plays and his political and philosophical worldview; insights into his Irish upbringing and
lifelong torment over losing faith in God; his vital role in African American cultural history;
unpublished photographs, including a unique offstage picture of him with his lover Louise
Bryant; new evidence of O’Neill’s desire to become a novelist and what this reveals about
his unique dramatic voice; and a startling revelation about the release of Long Day’s Journey
Into Night in defiance of his explicit instructions. This biography is also the first to discuss
O’Neill’s lost play Exorcism (a single copy of which was only recently recovered),
a dramatization of his own suicide attempt. Written with lively informality yet a scholar’s
strict accuracy, Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts is a biography that America’s
foremost playwright richly deserves.”
— Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-17033-7 (hardback)
1. O’Neill, Eugene, 1888–1953. 2. Dramatists, American—20th century—Biography. I. Title.
PS3529.N5Z6284 2014
812’.52—dc23
[B] 2014014634
A catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary.
This paper meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Mairéad Dowling and Chris Francescani
There can be no such thing as an IvoryTower for a playwright. He either
lives in the theater of his time or he never lives at all.
—EugeneO’Neill, 1926
Contents
acknowledgments ix
prologue:The Irish Luck Kid,1916 1
introduction:“Life Is a Tragedy—Hurrah!” 9
ACT I: The Ghosts at the Stage Door 27
The Treasures of Monte Cristo q School Days of an
Apostate q Anarchist in the Tropics q Exorcism in New
York q Return to Monte Cristo q The (Love) Sick
Apprentice q ItTakes a Village
ACT II: “To Be an Artist or Nothing” 125
Washed Ashore at Land’s End q Below Washington
Square q “Turn Back the Universe” q “The Town Is
Yours” q Civilization Unmasked q TheTheatre F(r)eud
viii Contents
ACT III: “The Broadway Show Shop” 241
Prometheus Unbound q Draining Bitter Cups q Note
to the Ku Klux Klan q “God’s Hard, Not Easy” q The
Novelist behind the Mask q “Old Doc” at Loon
Lodge q The Soliloquy IsDead!LongLive—What?
ACT IV: Full Fathom Five 351
Uncharted Seas q L’Aeschylus du Plessis q The Prodigal
Returns q “The Game Isn’t Worth the Candle” q
Pandora’s Box q The Tyranny of Time q Silence’s
End q “There’s a Lot to Be Said for BeingDead”
postscript:Journey Into Light 473
appendix:Selected Chronology of Works (Date Completed) 487
notes 491
index 555
Acknowledgments
A
blizzard-like storm has engulfed my hometown of New
London, Connecticut, as I type these acknowledgments.
New London is the town in which this book’s subject spent
the earliest years of his life, and in 1951, a blizzard in effect
ended it, on a spiritual level, at Marblehead Neck, Massachusetts. As
the majority of those listed below can testify, for the past decade all
such roads—literal and associative, biographical and literary—have in
some way, like this storm outside my office window, swung my mental
focus back around to Eugene Gladstone O’Neill.
The only person who has had a higher claim on my daily thoughts
over these last years is my daughter, Mairéad Dowling, to whom I
warmly dedicate this book. I would bet that throughout this period
Mairéad, now a teenager, has unwittingly absorbed more facts, fig-
ures, anecdotes, and judgments about Eugene O’Neill than many
avid theatergoers and drama critics have in their lifetimes. Thank you
for your patience and understanding, my darling girl.
I would next like to thank my great friend and fellow “hapless
architect of the written word,” Chris Francescani, to whom this book
is also dedicated. Chris adroitly guided me through the process of
how to tell a story, to the best of my ability, as exceptional as O’Neill’s.
My mother, Janet B. Kellock, and my friend, colleague, and coed-
itor Jackson R. Bryer also read complete drafts of this biography, and
ix