Eugene O’Neill This page intentionally left blank Eugene O’Neill A Life in Four Acts ROBERT M. DOWLING New Haven and London 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. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Designed by James J. Johnson. Set in Janson type by IDS Infotech, Ltd. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dowling, Robert M., 1970– author. Eugene O’Neill : a life in four acts / Robert M. Dowling. pages cm Summary: “A major new biography of the Nobel Prize–winning playwright whose brilliantly original plays revolutionized American theater.” — Provided by publisher. Summary: “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Irish upbringing and lifelong torment over losing faith in God; his vital role in African American cultural history; unpublished photographs, including a unique offstage picture of him with his lover Louise Bryant; new evidence of O’Neill’s desire to become a novelist and what this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.” — Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-17033-7 (hardback) 1. O’Neill, Eugene, 1888–1953. 2. Dramatists, American—20th century—Biography. I. Title. PS3529.N5Z6284 2014 812’.52—dc23 [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). 10987654321 To Mairéad 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. —Eugene O’Neill, 1926 Contents acknowledgments ix prologue: The Irish Luck Kid, 1916 1 introduction: “Life Is a Tragedy—Hurrah!” 9 ACT I: The Ghosts at the Stage Door 27 The Treasures of Monte Cristo q School Days of an Apostate q Anarchist in the Tropics q Exorcism in New York q Return to Monte Cristo q The (Love) Sick Apprentice q It Takes a Village ACT II: “To Be an Artist or Nothing” 125 Washed Ashore at Land’s End q Below Washington Square q “Turn Back the Universe” q “The Town Is Yours” q Civilization Unmasked q The Theatre F(r)eud viii Contents ACT III: “The Broadway Show Shop” 241 Prometheus Unbound q Draining Bitter Cups q Note to the Ku Klux Klan q “God’s Hard, Not Easy” q The Novelist behind the Mask q “Old Doc” at Loon Lodge q The Soliloquy Is Dead! Long Live—What? ACT IV: Full Fathom Five 351 Uncharted Seas q L’Aeschylus du Plessis q The Prodigal Returns q “The Game Isn’t Worth the Candle” q Pandora’s Box q The Tyranny of Time q Silence’s End q “There’s a Lot to Be Said for Being Dead” postscript: Journey Into Light 473 appendix: Selected Chronology of Works (Date Completed) 487 notes 491 index 555 Acknowledgments blizzard-like storm has engulfed my hometown of New London, Connecticut, as I type these acknowledgments. New London is the town in which this book’s subject spent the earliest years of his life, and in 1951, a blizzard in effect endedA it, on a spiritual level, at Marblehead Neck, Massachusetts. As the majority of those listed below can testify, for the past decade all such roads—literal and associative, biographical and literary—have in some way, like this storm outside my office window, swung my mental focus back around to Eugene Gladstone O’Neill. The only person who has had a higher claim on my daily thoughts over these last years is my daughter, Mairéad Dowling, to whom I warmly dedicate this book. I would bet that throughout this period Mairéad, now a teenager, has unwittingly absorbed more facts, fig- ures, anecdotes, and judgments about Eugene O’Neill 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 O’Neill’s. My mother, Janet B. Kellock, and my friend, colleague, and coed- itor Jackson R. Bryer also read complete drafts of this biography, and ix x Acknowledgments 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 book’s final hours, and their remarkable fortitude and skill have proved in- valuable. 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 O’Neill and provided much-needed resources for this book’s completion. Throughout various stages of this project I’ve count- ed on the input and assistance of many other family members, friends, and colleagues, notably my sisters, Susanne Magee and Elisa Olds, my friends Michael J. Peery, Tom Cerasulo, and Yibing Huang, my niece Jenna May Magee and her significant other, Huntley Brownell, my nephews Naoise and Daithi Magee, Burl Barr, Barry H. Leeds, Eileen Herrmann, William Davies King, Kurt Eisen, the late and beloved Deborah Martinson (“Put the man in there!”), Gwenola Le Bastard, Adam Kroshus, Kamal John Iskander, Megan Byrne, Derron Wood, Marc Zimmer, Art Wilinski, Jon and Laura Hexer, and James Scarles, all of whom have read through sections of this book and/or offered essential feedback. Far too many others to list have lent a hand, but a few more require mentioning: Mary Hartig, for taking on the painstaking work of formatting the text and footnotes of the manuscript; my in- dexer John Bealle (another magnificent job); George Monteiro and Brenda Murphy, whose original research provided lively anecdotes for this book (I look forward to the publication of theirs); O’Neill’s former nurse Kathryne Albertoni, may she rest in peace, for grant- ing me an interview in 2010; my graduate student Erin Sullivan (who, among other things, transcribed the hours-long taped inter- view of Albertoni); Myles Whalen, whose legal expertise helped me to interpret the mysteries of O’Neill’s first divorce papers; Peter Quinn, Acknowledgments xi Jay Parini, and Gary Greenberg, whose respective enthusiasms for this project were the first three steps toward getting it into print; my fellow members of the Eugene O’Neill Society, for whom I’ve served with pride on the board of directors, and the editorial board of the Eugene O’Neill Review, on which I also serve; those who with such pas- sion run the Tony Award–winning Eugene O’Neill Theater Center of Waterford, Connecticut, and the Flock Theatre of New London; and the other fellows who studied with me under Deborah Martinson at the Norman Mailer Fellowship program. Countless librarians, curators, and archivists also gave up pre- cious time and resources for this endeavor (some of whom are rec- ognized in the endnotes for specialized advice), but many thanks to Ben Panciera and Nova Seals of the Linda Lear Center for Spe- cial Collections and Archives at Connecticut College, Raymond Pun and Jeremy Megraw of the New York Public Library, Edward Gaynor of the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library, Edward Gaynor of the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library, Louise Bernard, Melissa Barton, Anne Marie Menta, and Ingrid Lennon-Pressey of the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mary Camezon of the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, and Deborah Herman and Sarah Marek of CCSU’s Elihu Burritt Library. My deep gratitude to all of you. This page intentionally left blank Eugene O’Neill This page intentionally left blank Prologue The Irish Luck Kid, 1916 In the rash lustihead of my young powers I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.