studyarena’s guide page studyarena’s guide page Contents Contents The Play The Play Characters at a Glance Characters at a Glance Richard’s Library Theater in 1912 Belle, Sex and the Early 1900s Morphine Addiction Autobiography in Eugene O’Neill Autobiography in Eugene O’Neill Three Big Questions Three Big Questions

T ahe Pl y T ahe Pl y

“Then, from all reports, we seem to be completely “It’s wrong to blame your brother. He can’t help surrounded by love!” – Nat Miller being what the past has made him. Any more than your father can. Or you. Or I.” – Mary

Seventeen-year-old Richard that she wants nothing to do It is August 1912, a day in drink, women, and arguments. Miller has a problem. He with him ever again. the life of the Tyrone family. They hopelessly point fingers Long Day’s Journey is desperately in love with They are Mary and James and place blame. Tyrone’s the girl next door, Muriel In a haze of resentment Tyrone and their living sons, acting career prevented into Night McComber. For weeks toward Muriel, his family, and Jamie and Edmund. Mary has them from having a stable By Eugene O’Neill Richard has been pouring the world, Richard decides to returned from treatment for home. Tyrone’s stinginess Directed by Robin Phillips his heart out in racy and leave for a wild night. With morphine addiction. She is caused Mary to get poor Now playing in the Kreeger romantic letters to her, liquor on his breath late at restless and anxious, though treatment, which led to March 30 – May 6, 2012 sending her passionate night in a bar, Richard meets her sons and husband try her addiction. Jamie and verses from poets that his some unsavory characters, to comfort her. Edmund’s Edmund have wasted their parents view as subversive including a prostitute named Ah,e Wild rness! coughing fits are getting lives. Loneliness takes hold and dangerous. Belle, who test his principles By Eugene O’Neill worse. Tyrone and Jamie try of Mary, resurrecting a cycle and cause him to explore Directed by Kyle Donnelly to keep Edmund’s illness of addiction that threatens to It is July 4, 1906 and on this what it really means to claim Now playing in the Fichandler hidden from the fragile Mary, tear the Tyrone family apart. day of independence Richard independence and come while preparing for the worst March 9 – April 8, 2012 receives a letter from Muriel. of age. l news from the town doctor. What will become of the Tyrones His heart breaks as he reads as the day turns to night? l In the face of Mary’s addiction and Edmund’s illness, the family dredges up morphine – addictive pain- the past and its pain. They reliever and sedative, closely try to escape into drink after related to heroin

Che aract rs at a Glance Che aract rs at a Glance The Miller family in Ah, Wilderness! are nostalgia-tinged The characters in Long Day’s Journey into Night, composite characters, inspired by O’Neill’s family members the Tyrone family, are based closely on O’Neill’s family. and neighbors in New London, Conn. Nat Miller – the decent, hardworking Aunt Lily – Nat’s sister, a single school Richard Miller – a restless 17-year-old Mary Tyrone – the mother, a morphine Jamie Tyrone – the oldest brother who Eugene Tyrone – the middle child who father who loves his family and teacher who harbors a love for a man on the brink of adulthood who is about addict who never recovered from drinks, womanizes and never lives up died in childhood. O’Neill’s brother tolerates their foibles that has hurt her to have his own independence day her son’s death. O’Neill’s mother’s to his potential. O’Neill’s older brother Edmund died at 18 months old. addiction began after her son’s death. drank himself to death by age 45. Essie Miller – the loving and fussy Uncle Sid – Essie’s brother, an Arthur, Mildred and Tommy Miller – mother who is a little uneducated and alcoholic who has lost jobs and love the other Miller children James Tyrone – the father and, like Edmund Tyrone – the youngest brother worries about Richard because of his addiction O’Neill’s father, a matinee idol (see who suffers from tuberculosis. Compare composite character – character created by combining characteristics of multiple real-life people article) who is an alcoholic. Edmund to O’Neill’s biography.

Major support for this program is provided by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation. Major support for this program is provided by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation. Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Eugene O’Neill Festival is generously sponsored by Joan and David Maxwell. The Eugene O’Neill Festival is generously sponsored by Joan and David Maxwell. Addi ction and Bel l e, Sex and the Early 1900s T heater in 1912 “Yes – it won’t do to have him getting any decent girl in trouble” – Sid “The summer will soon be over, thank Consumption rostitution was legal in the U.S. in 1906 but frowned upon. Women like Belle goodness. Your season will open again and were seen as “fallen” and in need of reform. However, prostitution was a Treatment in we can go back to second-rate hotels and Plucrative profession in a time when women either made a pittance working trains. I hate them, too, but at least I don’t in factories or stayed at home to raise children. It was also dangerous, as women risked abuse, disease and deadly complications from unsanitary abortions. Nat the Early 1900s expect them to be like a home.” –Mary Miller worries that Richard will get an incurable sexually transmitted disease if he n the early 1900s, substance abuse of any kind was has sex with a prostitute. seen as a social failing or character flaw. Nothing was known about genetic predisposition to certain addictive Miller also worries about Richard’s relationship with Muriel, because he thinks I he might be trying to ruin her. Premarital sex and pregnancy were serious social behaviors. Cognitive and behavioral therapies for addiction were in their early stages and would not find a foothold in taboos for women, in part because there were no effective forms of birth control. the medical community until well into the 1960s. Twelve- O’Neill’s father, If a woman or girl were to get pregnant, it would impact her chances of being able step programs, like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics James O’Neill, as to marry in the future. l Anonymous, wouldn’t exist until the 1920s. the Count of Monte Cristo, a role he performed thou- sands of times. “House tents” at the New York State Hospital for Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis, a sanatorium in New York, 1907. Ri chard’s Library

ichard’s parents are scandalized when they see the selection of rebellious books Richard is reading, A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, Rwhich challenge the social mores (values) of their time. Today, these writers are considered among the most A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou important of their time. Beside me singing in the Wilderness — Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! Oscar Wilde – Irish poet and playwright. The Picture of Dorian Gray is his most well-known novel. Wilde was sentenced to hard labor and imprisoned at Reading Gaol (prison) in 1895 for homosexuality. Richard’s mother refers The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam – Iranian to Wilde as wicked trash. poem written by Omar Khayyam in the n 1912, professional theater as we know it was still being 10th century. A rubaiyat is a four-line formed. Towns and cities outside New York had to wait for poem stanza. It was translated by Edward One of the most common prescriptions to treat substance FitzGerald, first appearing in 1859. Ah, touring companies to come to town to see performances. George Bernard Shaw – Irish literary critic, playwright, abuse was to isolate the individual in a facility known as I Wilderness! comes from the 12th verse of Actors therefore spent months at a time traveling the U.S. and socialist. His plays, while often comedic, addressed a sanitarium. These facilities, usually far away from urban by train and staying in hotels. James Tyrone travels every social and economic issues of the times and helped bring the poem. centers, were institutions with highly regimented schedules, year with a company, playing the same role that made him serious drama back to the British stage. He was heavily strict dietary codes, and exercise plans. These methods wealthy and famous. He has not, however, had the chance influenced by Henrik Ibsen. Activity Analyze this were seen as the best ways to fight addiction. However, to play additional, more challenging roles, which he regrets. passage from The these treatment facilities were very expensive and reserved This lifestyle is what makes Mary so unhappy, and she Rubaiyat of Omar to those who could afford them, thus Tyrone’s aversion to claims it is why she never made a home for the family. – Norwegian playwright who has had a Khayyam. Why did them in the play. Henrik Ibsen major influence on Western theater. Many of his works are O’Neill choose this passage for tragedies dealing with the realities of domestic life, behind the title of his play? Why did he Treating tuberculosis or consumption followed a similar the façade that families present to the public. His play change the words from “Oh, regimen to the one above. In a pre-antibiotic age, the best M atinee Idol Hedda Gabler is often referenced by Richard. Wilderness” to “Ah, Wilderness!”? cure for consumption was seen as a healthy diet, clean Use a poem or song lyric to air, and rest to strengthen the body’s immune system and Edwin Booth was one of the most The coming-of-age genre is devise the title of your ward off the disease. The sanitarium was seen as an ideal celebrated American actors of the late Activity one in which a young person transitions autobiography. Compile them as institution to treat tuberculosis. Unfortunately this treatment 19th century. In Long Day’s Journey to adulthood through an experience a class into a “reading list.” was ineffective in most cases and resulted in an unreliable into Night, Tyrone glories over his causing a loss of innocence. Write a rate of recovery. l performance of Othello opposite Edwin Booth’s Iago. Matinee idols were the short coming-of-age story based on your stars of the stage and adored by fans, experience. Be as true-to-life or imaginative as much like today’s film celebrities are. l you wish.

l Meet the Auto biography in O’Neill’s Plays Playwright ugene T he Monte Cristo Cottage EO’Neill was born in 1888 he Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, in a Broadway Conn., was the O’Neill summer home, where hotel. His father, Tthey lived when they were not on the road James, was with the touring theater company. It was named for an actor, so the play, The Count of Monte Cristo, that O’Neill’s Eugene’s early father performed in for much of his acting career. life was spent on tour. He finished It is the setting first for Ah, Wilderness! and later prep school, but for A Long Day’s Journey into Night. Today it is a he was expelled museum and national Landmark, managed by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. l from Princeton after his first year. He then took various jobs and traveled for Activity O’Neill is known for his detailed stage directions. Read the next several years. He got malaria in O’Neill’s stage directions at the beginning of one or both plays. Draw a Honduras and eventually tuberculosis, set design of the sitting room per his description. Choose colors and which forced him to spend time in a add details that convey the atmosphere of the play. sanatorium (see article). Oil ’Ne l ’s Muriel O’Neill began writing plays in 1913. In 1916 his short play Bound East for A photo from Marion Welch’s scrapbook Eugene O’Neill Collection. Yale Collection of American Cardiff was produced in New York, Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and which reintroduced tragedy to the Manuscript Library. New York stage. At that time Broadway plays were mostly melodramas and comedies. He won the Pulitzer Prize Ma Chere “Boutade”… for three plays: Beyond the Horizon in 1920, Anna Christie in 1922, and Strange I cannot say how much Interlude in 1928. In 1936, O’Neill was I missed and still miss the first American to win the Nobel you. New London has now Prize for Literature. He received a fourth Pulitzer Prize after his death for relapsed into a somnambulant A Long Day’s Journey into Night, which At 17 Eugene O’Neill had frequent state, which is far from is considered his masterpiece. correspondence with a young lady pleasing and all on account named Marion Welch. This relationship of your departure. … Well O’Neill’s life was fraught with tragedy, inspired O’Neill as he crafted the the sand in my hourglass is characters of Richard and Muriel in Ah, which is evident in his plays. His mother about run out and I must was a morphine addict. His father Wilderness! The language of O’Neill’s letters to his “Dear Marion” was peppered “put on the brakes.” Please and older brother were alcoholics. All send me your photo with the three of them died within three years with romantic phrases and loving of each other. He was divorced twice. flourishes, much like Richard’s manner of other pictures and thus make Both of his sons committed suicide. speaking with Muriel. An excerpt from one me even more than I am now. Eugene O’Neill He disowned his other son after he of O’Neill’s letters dated July 24, 1905: Your Eternal Slave, was arrested for heroin possession. He – sleepwalking disowned his daughter for marrying somnambulant Charlie Chaplin (a film star) when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He was often depressed and had attempted suicide twice. T he Comedy & The Tragedy ’Neill has said that Ah, Wilderness! (his only comedy) and Long Day’s Journey He eventually lost his ability to write, into Night (his most celebrated play) have autobiographical elements. and he died in 1953 in a Boston hotel O room. His last words were “I knew it. I O’Neill said of Ah, Wilderness!, “It was a sort of wishing out loud. That’s the way I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God would have liked my boyhood to have been.” damn it, died in a hotel room.” l Long Day’s Journey into Night was so close to his story that O’Neill stipulated Long tuberculosis – a contagious infection Day’s Journey was not to be published until 25 years after he had died. At that point of the lungs that can spread to other all the characters involved would be dead. However, his third wife and widow allowed organs, including the kidneys, spine the play to be performed and published in 1956, three years after his death. l and brain. TB can be fatal. H elpful Hints for Theater Audiences

As an audience member at the theater, Mo rphine and Addiction YOU are part of the show! Just as you “I hope, sometime, without meaning it, I will take an overdose. I could never see and hear the actors onstage, they do it deliberately. The Blessed Virgin would never forgive me, then.” – Mary can see and hear you in the audience. To help the performers do their best, orphine is a powerful sedative drug named for Morpheus, the please remember the following: Greek god of dreams. It belongs to a group of narcotics called Mopiates. The word opiate derives its name from a drug called Arrive at least 30 minutes early. opium that is made from poppy plants. Opiates have been used for Visit the restroom before the show starts. medical or illicit purposes for thousands of years. Before the show begins, turn off your cell phone, watch alarms, pagers Starting in the 1830s, doctors in the U.S. and Europe began prescribing and other electronic devices. If morphine to the general public as a pain reliever, not knowing or anything rings by accident, shut it off thinking of the long-term effects. This practice caused more than immediately. 400,000 cases of “Soldier’s Disease” (what we would now call Save food and drinks for the lobby. D rugs like morphine “addiction”) during the Civil War. and heroin that are There is no eating or drinking inside controlled today the theater. were once sold Searching for a less addictive substitute to morphine to combat alongside aspirin. Walk to and from your seat - no epidemic levels of addiction in the U.S., Bayer (the same company running in the theater! that sells aspirin today) created and marketed heroin, which is more addictive and now illegal in the U.S. Morphine currently requires a prescription for use because of the Do not talk, whisper, sing or hum. Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, which regulates its sale. l Do not use cell phones for calls, text messages, pictures or games. Keep your feet on the floor, not on the seat in front of you. Addi ction Avoid getting up during a show because it distracts your neighbors n Long Day’s Journey into Night and and the performers. If you must leave, Ah, Wilderness! there are characters wait for a scene change, then exit Iwith addictions. They use drugs quietly and quickly. and alcohol to cope with problems Performers appreciate enthusiastic in their lives. Eventually the body applause rather than whistling or develops a tolerance to the substance shouting. abused, and more of the drug is Cameras and videotape are required to achieve the same effect. prohibited because they are This can result in an overdose or, in distracting to the performers. the case of alcohol, liver failure or Enjoy the show! alcohol poisoning.

Addiction is a cycle that affects not only the addict, but his or her loved ones. l T hree Big Questions 1. What is the nature of home and family? 2. How does addiction affect individuals and their loved ones? 3. What is the relationship between autobiography and art? 1101 Sixth St., SW Washington, DC 20024 Additional Resources Phone: 202-554-9066 Fax: 202-488-4056 O n the Web • An Electric Eugene O’Neill Archive: eoneill.com Written by Kathryn Hampton • Eugene O’Neill Theater Center: theoneill.org & Enrico Nassi • Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site: nps.gov/euon Edited by Rebecca Campana • Addiction: mayoclinic.com/health/drug-addiction/DS00183/ Illustrations by Rob Carter DSECTION=symptoms • The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: classics.mit.edu/Khayyam/rubaiyat.html Visit www.arenastage.org Film for more information on • American Experience’s Eugene O’Neill, PBS, 2006 Arena Stage productions • Long Day’s Journey into Night, Egami, 1987 and educational opportunities.