Eugene O'Neill : A Life in Four Acts / Robert M. Dowling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dowling, Robert M., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953.

O'Neill, Eugene.

Dramatists, American--20th century--Biography.

Dramatists, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (584 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A major new biography of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright whose brilliantly original plays revolutionized American theaterFinalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize 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Irish upbringing and lifelong torment over losing faith in God; his vital role in African American cultural history; unpublished photographs, including a unique offstage picture of him with his lover Louise Bryant; new evidence of O'Neill's desire to become a novelist and what this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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue: The Irish Luck Kid, 1916

Introduction: "Life Is a Tragedy-Hurrah!"

ACT I: The Ghosts at the Stage Door

ACT II: "To Be an Artist or Nothing"

ACT III: "The Broadway Show Shop"

ACT IV: Full Fathom Five

Postscript: Journey Into Light

Appendix: Selected Chronology of Works (Date Completed)

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300210590

0300210590

OCLC:

892911045