In Eugene O'Neill's Creative Struggle, Doris Alexander gives us a new kind of inside biography that begins where the others leave off. It follows O'Neill through the door into his writing room to give a blow-by-blow account of how he fought out in his plays his great life battles&—love against hate, doubt against belief, life against death&—to an ever-expanding understanding. It presents a new kind of criticism, showing how O'Neill's most intimate struggles worked their way to resolution through the drama of his plays. Alexander reveals that he was engineering his own consciousness through his plays and solving his life problems&—while the tone, imagery, and richness of the plays all came out of the nexus of memories summoned up by the urgency of the problems he faced in them. By the way of O'Neill, this study moves toward a theory of the impulse that sets off a writer's creativity, and a theory of how that impulse acts to shape a work, not only in a dramatist like O'Neill but also in the case of writers in other mediums, and even of painters and composers. The study begins with Desire Under the Elms because that play's plot was consolidated by a dream that opened up the transfixing grief that precipitated the play for O'Neill, and it ends with Days Without End when he had resolved his major emotional-philosophical struggle and created within himself the voice of his final great plays. Since the analysis brings to bear on the plays all of his conscious decisions, ideas, theories, as well as the life-and-death struggles motivating them, documenting even the final creative changes made during rehearsals, this book provides a definitive account of the nine plays analyzed in detail (Desire Under the Elms, Marco Millions, The Great God Brown, Lazarus Laughed, Strange Interlude, Dynamo, Mourning Becomes Electra, Ah, Wilderness!, and Days Without End, with additional analysis of plays written before and after.

This study draws on research concerning the lives of Eugene O'Neill, his family and his circle. It corrects and expands the biographical record on him and distinguishes the man and his life from the creations that were inspired by, and drew on, that life. Included are his attempted suicide, his tuberculosis, and his relationship with his parents.

THE STORY: Originally produced on Broadway, revived to sellout houses in 1996 starring Al Pacino, HUGHIE was one of O'Neill's last works. It was originally intended as part of a series of short plays, but it became the lone survivor when O'Neill de

A wire for Live, the Web, thirst, recklessness, warnings, fog, bread and butter, Bound East for Cardiff, aAbortion, the movie man, servitude, the sniper, the personal eqauation, before breakfast, now I ask you, in the zone, ile, the long voyage home, the moon of the caribbees, the robe, beyond the horizon, shell shock, the dreamy kid, where the cross is made, the straw, Chris Christophersen, gold, anna Christie, and the Emperor Jones.

In the face of seemingly relentless American optimism, Eugene O'Neill's plays reveal an America many would like to ignore, a place of seething resentments, aching desires, and family tragedy, where failure and disappointment are the norm and the American dream a chimera. Though derided by critics during his lifetime, his works resonated with aud...

divEugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play Long Day’s Journey into Night is regarded as his masterpiece and a classic of American drama. With this new edition, at last it has the critical edition that it deserves. William Davies King provides students and theater artists with an invaluable guide to the text, including an essay on historical and critical perspectives; glosses of literary allusions and quotations; notes on the performance history; an annotated bibliography; and illustrations. "This is a worthy new edition, one that I'm sure will appeal to many students and teachers. William Davies King provides a thoughtful introduction to Long Day's Journey into Night—equally sensitive to the most particular and most encompassing of the play's materials."—Marc Robinson/DIV

Eugene O'Neill, Nobel Laureate in Literature and Pulitzer Prize winner, is widely known for his full length plays. However, his one-act plays are the foundation of his work - both thematically and stylistically, they telescope his later plays. This collection aims to fill the gap by examining these texts, during what can be considered O'Neill's formative writing years, and the foundational period of American drama. A wide-ranging investigation into O'Neill's one-acts, the contributors shed light on a less-explored part of his career and assist scholars in understanding O'Neill's entire oeuvre.

Celebrated for their books on Eugene O’Neill and enjoying access to a trove of previously sealed archival material, the Gelbs deliver their final volume on the stormy life and brilliant oeuvre of this Nobel Prize–winning American playwright. This is a tour through both a magical moment in American theater and the troubled life of a genius. Not a peep show or a celebrity gossip fest, this book is a brilliant investigation of the emotional knots that ensnared one of our most important playwrights. Handsome, charming when he wanted to be: O’Neill was the flame women were drawn to—all, that is, except his mother, who never let him forget he was unwanted. By Women Possessed follows O’Neill through his great successes, the failures he was able to shrug off, and the long eclipse, a twelve-year period in which, despite the Nobel, nothing he wrote was produced. But ahead lay his greatest achievements: The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey into Night. Both were ahead of their time and both received lukewarm receptions. It wasn’t until after his death that his widow, the keeper of the flame, began a fierce and successful campaign to restore his reputation. The result is that today, just over 125 years after his birth, O’Neill is a towering presence in the theater, his work—always in performance here and abroad—still electrifying audiences. Perhaps of equal importance, he is the acknowledged father of modern American theater, the man who paved the way for the likes of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and a host of others. But, as Williams has said, at a cost: “O’Neill gave birth to the American theater and died for it.”

O'Neill's themes and concerns find expression in his one-act plays which are the dramatic equivalent of short stories. Here are nine one-act plays that span the playwright's career.