Eugene O'Neill

Let's just say that, most likely, Eugene O'Neill is the most depressing playwright in American history. He may also be the most important.

He introduced psychological and social realism to the American stage; he was among the earliest to use American vernacular, and to focus on characters marginalised by society. Before O'Neill, American theatre consisted of melodrama and farce; he was the first US playwright to take drama seriously as an aesthetic and intellectual form. He took it very seriously indeed; one cannot accuse O'Neill of frivolity. Of more than 50 finished plays, O'Neill wrote just one ostensible comedy, Ah, Wilderness! (1933), and even its plot hinges on drunkenness, prostitution, revenge and repressed desire. Of course, most of O'Neill's plays involve drunkenness, prostitution, revenge and repressed desire.

Then again, his life seemed to hinge on drunkenness, prostitution, revenge and repressed desire. His mother was a morphine addict, his brother drank himself to death... I mean, it sounds just like a Eugene O'Neill play!

Sarah Churchwell writes a great introduction to the man, Eugene O'Neill, master of American theatre.