Dowling Robert M. - Eugene ONeill : a life in four acts

Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College

Copyright 2014 by Robert M. Dowling.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dowling, Robert M., 1970 author.

Eugene ONeill : a life in four acts / Robert M. Dowling.

pages cm

Summary: A major new biography of the Nobel Prizewinning playwright whose brilliantly original plays revolutionized American theater.

Provided by publisher.

Summary: This extraordinary new biography fully captures the intimacies of Eugene ONeills tumultuous life and the profound impact of his work on American drama. Robert M. Dowling innovatively recounts ONeills 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 ONeills 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 ONeills 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Irish upbringing and lifelong torment over losing faith in God; his vital role in African American cultural history; unpublished photographs, including a unique offstage picture of him with his lover Louise Bryant; new evidence of ONeills desire to become a novelist and what this reveals about his unique dramatic voice; and a startling revelation about the release of Long Days Journey Into Night in defiance of his explicit instructions. This biography is also the first to discuss ONeills 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 scholars strict accuracy, Eugene ONeill: A Life in Four Acts is a biography that Americas foremost playwright richly deserves.

Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-300-17033-7 (hardback)

1. ONeill, Eugene, 18881953. 2. Dramatists, American20th centuryBiography. I. Title.

PS3529.N5Z6284 2014

812.52dc23

[B] 2014014634

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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 Mairad Dowling and Chris Francescani

There can be no such thing as an Ivory Tower for a playwright. He either
lives in the theater of his time or he never lives at all.

E UGENE ON EILL , 1926

Contents

The Treasures of Monte Cristo School Days of an Apostate Anarchist in the Tropics Exorcism in New York Return to Monte Cristo The (Love) Sick Apprentice It Takes a Village

Washed Ashore at Lands End Below Washington Square Turn Back the Universe The Town Is Yours Civilization Unmasked The Theatre F(r)eud

Prometheus Unbound Draining Bitter Cups Note to the Ku Klux Klan Gods Hard, Not Easy The Novelist behind the Mask Old Doc at Loon Lodge The Soliloquy Is Dead! Long LiveWhat?

Uncharted Seas LAeschylus du Plessis The Prodigal Returns The Game Isnt Worth the Candle Pandoras Box The Tyranny of Time Silences End Theres a Lot to Be Said for Being Dead

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 books 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 roadsliteral and associative, biographical and literaryhave in some way, like this storm outside my office window, swung my mental focus back around to Eugene Gladstone ONeill.

The only person who has had a higher claim on my daily thoughts over these last years is my daughter, Mairad Dowling, to whom I warmly dedicate this book. I would bet that throughout this period Mairad, now a teenager, has unwittingly absorbed more facts, figures, anecdotes, and judgments about Eugene ONeill 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 ONeills.

My mother, Janet B. Kellock, and my friend, colleague, and coeditor Jackson R. Bryer also read complete drafts of this biography, and each of them offered critical insights and editorial acumen. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my splendid agent Geri Thoma as well as to my former and current editors Ileene Smith, Eric Brandt, and Steve Wasserman, respectively, and editorial assistants Erica Hanson and Eva Skewes for their steadfast enthusiasm and support. My copy editor Robin DuBlanc, project manager Laura Jones Dooley, and proofreader Jack Borrebach took on the heavy lifting of this books final hours, and their remarkable fortitude and skill have proved invaluable. I would also like to express my gratitude to the leadership of Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), which has shown abiding interest in my work on ONeill and provided much-needed resources for this books completion.