O'Neill, Eugene
O'Neill, Eugene ( 1888 – 1953 ),American dramatist, born in New York. The son of a well-known romantic actor, he had a varied career (as seaman, gold prospector, journalist, and actor) before associating himself ( 1916 ) with the experimental theatre group the Provincetown Players, which staged several of his early one-act plays, including Bound East for Cardiff ( 1916 ) and The Moon of the Caribbees ( 1918 ). His first big success was the full-length naturalistic drama Beyond the Horizon ( 1920 ), which was followed in the same year by his expressionistic The Emperor Jones, a tragedy which describes the rise and fall of the Negro ‘emperor’ of a West Indian island, and Anna Christie ( 1921 ), a naturalistic study of a prostitute on the New York waterfront and her redemption. Among other important plays of this period were The Hairy Ape ( 1922 ), All God's Chillun Got Wings (...
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