In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Editor’s Foreword
  • William Davies King

I like that this issue of the O’Neill Review—my last as editor—ventures a new approach to what an academic journal can be, looking at how the literary arts of Eugene O’Neill, drama, monologue, and poetry, can be used to reflect on that great writer and difficult man. As the journal advances into the hands of other O’Neill Society members, it seems appropriate also that this transitional issue is more than ever a product of collaborative work. We have always had excellent book review and performance review editors, and I want to thank Kurt Eisen and J. Chris Westgate in the former capacity and J. Chris Westgate, Robert McLean, and Katie Johnson in the latter for all the work they have done to bring a creative and expansive vision to what those sections should do. What’s new in this issue is the special section devoted to representations of O’Neill, which I jointly edited with Beth Wynstra, the secretary/treasurer of the O’Neill Society. A former student of mine at UCSB, Beth brings creative verve to all her O’Neill-related work, including the dramatizing of his life, and I enjoyed working with her on this special section: “O’Neill Upstages O’Neill.” The one traditional journal article in this issue is by a writer who also happens to be my student at UCSB, Ryder Thornton. He is a director/scholar who in the early stages of his doctoral research has trained his voraciously inquisitive, philosophically encompassing mind on Eugene O’Neill.

Over the past six plus years I have received a tremendous postdoctoral education in O’Neill studies from the many authors whose work has appeared in these pages. They opened my thoughts and imagination to many new ways of looking at O’Neill and a whole array of collateral topics. I am grateful to many others—photographers, archivists, editorial assistants, actors and directors, and translators—who have helped bring the work presented here [End Page v] up to its full potential. The staff at Penn State University Press has been outstandingly supportive and kind at every stage, and I’d particularly like to thank Diana Pesek, Jessica Karp, Therese Boyd, Julie Lambert, and Patrick Alexander. I also wish to acknowledge my colleagues in the Department of Theater and Dance at UCSB, who have allowed me to do this work, and now two deans of Humanities and Fine Arts, David Marshall and John Majewski, who have supplied vital support. Many thanks to the leaders of the O’Neill Society, officers and board members, who entrusted me with this job and who have been so supportive and wise in counsel. Of all of them let me single out Laurie Porter, who, as president, put me in this job. I hope to see many of you in Galway in 2017. Meanwhile, I say this loudly on behalf of the next editor, PLEASE WRITE. [End Page vi]

William Davies King
University of California, Santa Barbara
...

pdf

Share