Extended Day's Journey Into Night is actually a 1956 drama in 4 acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely regarded as to be his masterwork. O'Neill posthumously received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the perform.
The action covers a fateful, heart-rending day from about 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home in the Tyrones - the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their residence, Monte Cristo Cottage.
One theme of the play is addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family. All three males are alcoholics and Mary is addicted to morphine. In the play the characters conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and half-sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.
Upon its completion in 1942, O'Neill had a sealed copy with the play placed inside the document vault of publisher Random House, and instructed that it not be published until 25 years after his death. A formal contract to that impact was drawn up in 1945. Nonetheless, O'Neill's third wife Carlotta Monterey transferred the rights from the play to Yale University, skirting the agreement. The copyright page of Yale editions of the play states the circumstances of Carlotta's gift:
All royalties from the sale of the Yale editions of this book go to Yale University for the benefit of the Eugene O'Neill Collection, for the purchase of books in the field of drama, and for the establishment of Eugene O'Neill Scholarships in the Yale School of Drama.
The play was first published in 1956, three years after its author's death.
In key elements, the play closely parallels Eugene O'Neill's own life. The location, a summer property in Connecticut, corresponds for the loved ones home, Monte Cristo Cottage, in New London, Connecticut (the modest town with the play), and in true life the cottage is nowadays produced up as it may possibly have appeared within the play. The family members corresponds to the O'Neill household, which was Irish-American, with three name modifications: the loved ones name "O'Neill" is changed to "Tyrone," the name in the earldom granted to Conn O'Neill by Henry VIII; the names with the second and third sons are reversed ("Eugene" with "Edmund" - in real life, Eugene was the third (youngest) kid, who corresponds towards the character of "Edmund" in the play); and O'Neill's mother, in genuine life Mary Ellen "Ella" Quinlan, is renamed to Mary Cavan. The ages are all of the actual ages from the O'Neill family in August 1912.
In real life, Eugene O'Neill's father, James O'Neill, was a promising young actor in his youth, as was the father inside the play, and did share the stage with Edwin Booth, who is mentioned inside the play. He accomplished commercial achievement inside the title role to Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, playing the title role about 6000 occasions, and he had been criticized as "selling out".[1]
Eugene's mother Mary did attend a Catholic school within the Midwest (Middle West), Saint Mary's College, of Notre Dame, Indiana. Subsequent towards the date when the play is set (1912), but before the play's writing (1941-42), Eugene's older brother Jamie did drink himself to death (c. 1923).
As to Eugene himself, by 1912 he had attended a renowned university (Princeton), spent a number of years at sea, and suffered from depression and alcoholism, and did contribute for the neighborhood newspaper, the New London Telegraph, writing poetry also as reporting. He did visit a sanatorium in 1912-13 because of suffering from tuberculosis (consumption), whereupon he devoted himself to playwriting. The events within the play are thus set right away before Eugene beginning his profession in earnest.
The action covers a fateful, heart-rending day from about 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home in the Tyrones - the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their residence, Monte Cristo Cottage.
One theme of the play is addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family. All three males are alcoholics and Mary is addicted to morphine. In the play the characters conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and half-sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.
Upon its completion in 1942, O'Neill had a sealed copy with the play placed inside the document vault of publisher Random House, and instructed that it not be published until 25 years after his death. A formal contract to that impact was drawn up in 1945. Nonetheless, O'Neill's third wife Carlotta Monterey transferred the rights from the play to Yale University, skirting the agreement. The copyright page of Yale editions of the play states the circumstances of Carlotta's gift:
All royalties from the sale of the Yale editions of this book go to Yale University for the benefit of the Eugene O'Neill Collection, for the purchase of books in the field of drama, and for the establishment of Eugene O'Neill Scholarships in the Yale School of Drama.
The play was first published in 1956, three years after its author's death.
In key elements, the play closely parallels Eugene O'Neill's own life. The location, a summer property in Connecticut, corresponds for the loved ones home, Monte Cristo Cottage, in New London, Connecticut (the modest town with the play), and in true life the cottage is nowadays produced up as it may possibly have appeared within the play. The family members corresponds to the O'Neill household, which was Irish-American, with three name modifications: the loved ones name "O'Neill" is changed to "Tyrone," the name in the earldom granted to Conn O'Neill by Henry VIII; the names with the second and third sons are reversed ("Eugene" with "Edmund" - in real life, Eugene was the third (youngest) kid, who corresponds towards the character of "Edmund" in the play); and O'Neill's mother, in genuine life Mary Ellen "Ella" Quinlan, is renamed to Mary Cavan. The ages are all of the actual ages from the O'Neill family in August 1912.
In real life, Eugene O'Neill's father, James O'Neill, was a promising young actor in his youth, as was the father inside the play, and did share the stage with Edwin Booth, who is mentioned inside the play. He accomplished commercial achievement inside the title role to Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, playing the title role about 6000 occasions, and he had been criticized as "selling out".[1]
Eugene's mother Mary did attend a Catholic school within the Midwest (Middle West), Saint Mary's College, of Notre Dame, Indiana. Subsequent towards the date when the play is set (1912), but before the play's writing (1941-42), Eugene's older brother Jamie did drink himself to death (c. 1923).
As to Eugene himself, by 1912 he had attended a renowned university (Princeton), spent a number of years at sea, and suffered from depression and alcoholism, and did contribute for the neighborhood newspaper, the New London Telegraph, writing poetry also as reporting. He did visit a sanatorium in 1912-13 because of suffering from tuberculosis (consumption), whereupon he devoted himself to playwriting. The events within the play are thus set right away before Eugene beginning his profession in earnest.
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