He laid the foundation forAmerican drama. He comes form actor’s family, education was not systematic, he did different odd jobs – gold digger in Gonduras, sailor, journalist, etc. This enriched him with knowledge of life firsthand. He developed interest for drama when he treated his tuberculosis in sanatorium. He read Ibsen. Then after he took a course in theory of drama in Harvard. 1914 is his literary debut “Thirst & Other One-Act Plays”. From 1919 O’Neill collaborated with Provincetown players company. They staged his first works, & with this company his success is associated. He worked with them up to 1924. The plays of this period:

“The Emperor Jones”

“The Hairy Ape”

“All God’s Chillun Got Wings” (chillun = children)

These plays voiced his protest against racism & exploitation. His plays differed from typical Broadway production. They are very experimental. On the one hand, they are realistic dramas, showing the life of people who never before were the subject of writers’ interest. On the other hand, his plays exhibit his search for the adequate form to treat this topic. Traditional realism is combined with the elements of expressionist drama, touch of Ibsen’s influence; innovative approach to the use of the elements of classical drama & biblical motives. [Ibsen introduced the drama of ideas, where not the events were important but ideas that were discussed & disclosed by these events. He is very close to Chekhov]

“The Hairy Ape” is a story of a young proletariat Robert Smith whom everybody calls Jank. He was offended by a daughter of a certain man of property & so he is expressed his …to such a degree that he was put to jail where he absorbed certain socialistic ideas. But when he is released he tries to find his “братьев по духу” he is taken for provocateur. He is very much shocked and baffled so he goes to the zoo where he lets an ape out of the cage. Eventually this ape kills him & he dies in the ape’s cage.

His remarks to the play are very important & he pays great attention to the setting. First scene shows the worker’s dwelling. It must remind a cage by O’Neill. Then the scene shifts to a stove-hall is shown. There must be a flame: the fire symbolizes the hell of capitalists exploitation. The next scene shows the fashionable hotel – the paradise of the rich. The last scene is also an ape cage. It finishes the cycle.

The naturalistic symbolism conveys the idea of inhumanity of exploiters, shifts the accents from the conditions, turning man to a beast to the biological characteristics.

In his work of 30-40’s experiment takes to realism.

“The Great God Brown”

“Lazarus Laughed”

“Strange Interlude”

He resorted to various techniques of modern theatre – psychoanalysis, inner monologue, mask theatre.

His masterpiece is trilogy “Mourning Becomes Electra”. Here he develops classical notion of the tragic & transfers it to American soil of the civil war period. He takes an eternal conflict & puts it to America. Histories of O’Neill’s characters are compared to the lives of Electra, Orestas, Clitemnestra. But the environment is different.

Later he intended to write a saga about wealthy people. It materialized in two plays:

“A Touch of the Poet”

“More Stately Mansions”

O’Neill showed how several generations of American families gradually lose their values, their destines mingle. Individual lives become part of national history.

The plays crowning his career are “A Moon for the Misbegotten”, “Long Day’s Journey into Night”. The latter is the most autobiographical.

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