Eugene O'Neill
1) The Straw
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Excerpt: "The kitchen of the Carmody home on the outskirts of a manufacturing town in Connecticut. On the left, forward, the sink. Farther back, two windows looking out on the yard. In the left corner, rear, the icebox. Immediately to the right of it, in the rear wall, a window opening on the side porch. To the right of this, a china cupboard, and a door leading into the hall where the main front entrance to the house and the stairs to the floor above...
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Although one of his lesser-known one-act plays, "The Hairy Ape," written in 1922, followed the success of his first two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays. This drama follows the disturbing dehumanization of Yank, a ship's fireman and a representation of the lower class. He feels superiority from his brute strength until he meets Mildred, the well-intentioned daughter of an extremely wealthy steel magnate. She initiates Yank's uncertainty and disillusionment...
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Excerpt: "Scene-A small, barren coral island on the southern fringe of the Malay Archipelago. The coral sand, blazing white under the full glare of the sun, lifts in the right foreground to a long hummuck a few feet above sea-level. A stunted coco palm rises from the center of this elevation, its bunch of scraggly leaves drooping motionlessly, casting a small circular patch of shadow directly beneath on the ground about the trunk. About a hundred...
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The groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize–winning drama following the private life of a professor's daughter, by the playwright famed for The Iceman Cometh.
Nina Leeds, the daughter of a classics professor at a New England college, has had her dreams shattered by the Great War, in which her fiancé perished. In her grief, she sets out on an aimless path of sordid affairs while rejecting a devoted admirer. When she finally does marry, it is to a...
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The Classic Collection of Eugene O'Neill brings together a compelling anthology of some of the playwright's most renowned works. Spanning a variety of themes and emotions, this collection showcases O'Neill's masterful storytelling and deep exploration of the human experience. From the heart-wrenching tale of love and sacrifice in "Beyond the Horizon" to the psychological journey of power and identity in "The Emperor Jones," O'Neill's timeless dramas...
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The First Man is an unfinished autobiographical play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill, a Nobel laureate in Literature, is known for his groundbreaking contributions to American drama. "The First Man" was written in the 1920s but remained incomplete at the time of O'Neill's death in 1953. Despite its unfinished status, the play provides valuable insights into the playwright's life and creative process.
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Winner of the Nobel prize for literature and 4 Pulitzer prizes, Eugene O'Neill is generally acknowledged as America's greatest playwright. The Emperor Jones is an expressionistic play much-admired for its powerful psychological portrayal of brute power, fear, and madness. The Hairy Ape combines elements of class struggle and surreal tragedy. Also includes Anna Christie.
8) Four Plays
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Contained within this volume are some of the best of O'Neill's early one-act plays, which foreshadowed the longer plays that have given this dramatist his most enduring fame. "Beyond the Horizon" was the first of O'Neill's three Pulitzer Prize-winning plays. It follows the disappointed dreams of two brothers on their family farm. "The Emperor Jones" is an expressionistic transformation of a black man named Brutus Jones. In fleeing from his rebelling...
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Eugene O' Neill's tale of Ephraim Cabot, greedy and hard like the stone walls that surround his farm, the family patriarch brings home his new young bride, Abbie. His grown sons dissaprove; one leaves but the other stays to fight for the family fortune. What follows is a tragedy of epic proportions. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Paul Adelstein, Orson Bean, Amy Brenneman, Dwier Brown, Maurice Chasse and Charlie Kimball.