O’Neill In and Out of the Classroom

I am interested in how the image of Eugene O’Neill forms in the imagination of a particular audience: undergraduate students. The inspiration for my presentation came from the recent PBS American Experience documentary on the late Mike Nichols. While recalling the works and people who influenced him, Nichols remarked, “Sometime between the ages of twelve and fourteen, I read every word that Eugene O’Neill ever wrote.” Now, we would certainly love for our young students to follow a similar reading trajectory, but the fact is that most students do not encounter O’Neill until their undergraduate years, at which point many respond strongly to the works of the great American playwright. Students who read a play like Long Day’s Journey Into Night often feel a connection to their own family and can understand issues of substance abuse, belated regret for a life that went wrong, sibling rivalry, and parental disappointment.

When students have the opportunity to visit Monte Cristo Cottage or Tao House, their experiences with O’Neill are all the more intense. For many years I have worked with young people at Tao House, both through the Eugene O’Neill Foundation’s Studio Retreat and with my Babson College students spending the semester in San Francisco. Students who have the chance to see and tour where O’Neill lived and worked come to understand his dramas in conjunction with his life.

But I have wondered whether the emotional impact and lessons of learning about the integration of art and life in O’Neill’s plays stay with them. How does O’Neill lastingly figure in the imaginations of college graduates? To explore this question I designed an online survey that I sent to graduates of my courses from the last seven years. I asked a few colleagues from the O’Neill Society to send the survey to their past students as well. The survey questions were:

1. 1. Before entering college what did you know about Eugene O’Neill? At what age were you first exposed to his works?

2. 2. What do you remember about Eugene O’Neill’s life? Do you remember autobiographical elements in O’Neill’s plays?

3. 3. Why do you think O’Neill is significant?

4. 4. What plays or details from O’Neill’s plays do you remember?

5. 5. Anything else you want to tell me about Eugene O’Neill?

I received twenty-five anonymous responses to this survey, and I will share just a few.

To question 1, all but two of the respondents answered that they knew nothing about O’Neill before entering college. Some responses included “I had never heard of O’Neill and was never familiar with any of his works until my senior year of college—and I’m 30!” “I am an English teacher in China. I know nothing about EO before entering college. I got to know about EO when I was in college, at the age of 22.” “Although I am an enthusiastic and possibly even intemperate theatergoer, I managed to avoid O’Neill until I was twenty-eight.”

Students responding to question 2 could recall quite a bit about O’Neill’s life and the autobiographical elements in his plays. This question generally elicited the longest answers, including:

I remember a great deal, especially after taking Katie Johnson’s O’Neill class. His childhood was not ideal—his mother being a drug addict and his father being an unfulfilled actor as well as an alcoholic and his brother also struggling with alcohol addiction. Then O’Neill himself struggled with alcohol addiction and experienced depression and even attempted suicide. In his newly-found one-act play, he even recounts this tumultuous time in his life. He had many wives and abandoned his children. Then at the end of his life, he wrote an account of his life in “Long Day’s Journey” and it became his magnum opus.

O’Neill’s family life is the most vivid for me, and often shows up in some way in almost every play. I also feel his time at sea is important because it...