Marco Millions and O'Neill's "two part two-play" Form
- Marco Millions and O'Neill's "two part two-play" Form
John H. Stroupe: An Associate Professor of English at Western Michigan University, Mr. Stroupe has published in a variety of journals, is co-editor of Comparative Drama, and is at work on Faces Fit For Masks, a study of the dramatic use of the mask from Sophocles to Genet.
Footnotes
1. O'Neill's inscription on the title page of his first manuscript draft of the play, originally titled Mr. Mark Millions.
2. O'Neill's working notes for Marco Millions, his longhand first draft, and a typescript of that draft with O'Neill's extensive pencil cuts and revisions upon that text, were a gift from the author to Yale University in 1942 and are available in Yale's collection of O'Neilliana. The Theatre Guild's prompt copy is in the Theatre Guild Collection, also at Yale. My essay was made possible by a Faculty Research Fellowship from Western Michigan University.
3. Although Marco Polo's narrative was available in many editions, O'Neill's working notes reveal that he was familiar with the most celebrated edition of the travels, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, edited by Sir Henry Yule (New York, 1921, Third Edition). See my "O'Neill's Marco Millions: A Road to Xanada," Modern Drama, XII (Feb. 1970), 377-382, for a detailed examination of those notes.
4. Because of restrictions placed upon the drafted materials at Yale, I cannot quote directly from scenes written but not included in the published play. My summaries of their content, however, are based upon extensive work with the O'Neill manuscripts.
5. All references to Marco Millions in published form are from The Plays of Eugene O'Neill (New York, 1955). Page references are incorporated into the text.
6. When O'Neill omitted Kukachin and the tutors, the first of the three scenes under discussion was reduced to the initial meeting of the Polos with Kublai. When the second and third scenes were combined, O'Neill took the discussion of Marco's career and his decision to be a Second Class Agent and joined it to the first. As a result, the revised first scene allows the audience to see Marco meet Kublai and immediately choose a career. The new scene which follows fifteen years later introduces Kukachin to the play as a girl of twenty. See the published play, Act One, Scene Six, and Act Two, Scene One.
7. The passage is identical in both the published edition and the drafts.
8. Or Act Four, Scene Two and Act Five of the revised eight-act structure. When O'Neill replaced the typescript headings, Act Three of the first draft became Act Four, Scene One of the second; Act Four, Scene One of the first draft became Act Four, Scene Two of the second; and Act Four, Scene Two became Act Five.
9. Information from Alfred Lunt. The play opened at the Guild Theatre, New York, on January 9, 1928, and ran for ninety-two performances.
