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Eugene O'Neil birth and death date
Longacre Square, New York, NY Oct 16, 1888 - Nov 27, 1953 -
Eugene O'Neil Fauther
Eugene O'Neill was the son of Ella Quinlan and the actor James O'Neill. Eugene spent the first seven years of his life touring with his father's theater company. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/eugene-oneill-about-eugene-oneill/676/ -
Eugen O'Neels wives
In 1910 he fell in love with and married the first of three wives, Kathleen Jenkins. Soon after, however, O’Neill left his wife for the adventures of traveling. In Honduras, he contracted Malaria and returned to find Kathleen pregnant with his child. Without seeing the boy (Eugene O’Neill, Jr.), O’Neill shipped out again, this time for Buenos Aires, and later for England.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/eugene-oneill-about-eugene-oneill/676/ -
What inspied his plays
In 1912, O’Neill got tuberculosis. During his recovery in a sanitarium, he read the great playwrights August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, and Henrik Ibsen. Their plays were highly realistic and inspired O’Neill to write about characters facing impossible odds. -
Eugene O'Neil Divorce
In 1912, Kathleen filed for divorce, and soon after, plagued by illness, O’Neill returned to his parent's home. It was there among the turmoil of a despondent father and a morphine-addicted mother that he decided to become a playwright. -
Eugene O'Neil second wife and kids
In 1918 he married Agnes Boulton, and with her had two children, Shane and Oona. He continued to publish and produce his one-acts, but it was not until his play “Beyond the Horizon” (1920), that American audiences responded to his genius. The play won the first of three Pulitzer Prizes for O’Neill. Many saw this early work as the first step toward a more serious American theater. -
Period: to
Period of the major works of Eugene O’Neill
Between 1920 and 1943 he completed 20 long plays—several of them double and triple length—and a number of shorter ones. He wrote and rewrote many of his manuscripts half a dozen times before he was satisfied, and he filled shelves of notebooks with research notes, outlines, play ideas, and other memoranda. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-ONeill/Period-of-the-major-works -
Marco millions
Generally agreed to be one of the most significant forces in the history of American theater, O'Neill is a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. O'Neill writes in the foreword that Marco Millions is an attempt to render poetic justice to one long famous as a traveler, unjustly world-renowned as a liar, but sadly unrecognized by posterity in his true eminence as a man and a citizen-Marco Polo of Venice.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1663509 -
The Great God Brown
This play is about two characters, William (Billy) Brown and Dion Anthony. They both fell in love with a character named Margaret. Margaret chooses Dion for his mask which hides his artistic side. Billy gets jealous of Dion and steals his mask to marry Margaret. Billy eventually is accused of the murder of his “old” self and is shot by the police. Margaret continues to worship Dion’s mask. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Great-God-Brown -
Plays Made From Sad Times
The times, however, were fraught with turmoil—seeing the death of O’Neill’s father, mother, and brother, as well as the break-up of his marriage.
Despite (or because) of these tragedies, he went on to create a number of penetrating and insightful views into family life and struggle. With plays such as “Desire Under the Elms” (1924) and “Mourning Becomes Electra” (1931), O’Neill uses moral and physical entanglements similar to Greek drama to express the complexities of family life. -
Afther Death
1936, most of his later works were not produced until after his death. His failing health did not prevent him, however, from writing two of the greatest works the American stage has ever seen. Both “The Iceman Cometh”, a story of personal desperation in the lives of a handful of barflies, and “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” a view into the difficult family life of his early years, were profound insights into many of the darker questions of human existence. -
Long Day's Journey into Night
The play portrays a family struggling to grapple with the realities and consequences of the failings of other family members in relation to their own. The family's enduring emotional and psychic stress is fueled by their depth of self-understanding and self-analysis, combined with frank honesty, and an ability to boldly express themselves articulately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Day's_Journey_into_Night