1

O'NEILL. Sunday Aug 3rd. I was dark.

The Pent House... it is painted green, has a door open to a roof, shiny floor with no rugs. Small stuffed furniture. Chinese look. "any beautiful and ornamental books. The drum... from where? A small square card table with four chairs-perneps for eating.

Gene looks wonderful entirely different. I think he needed his own home.

He wastender and warm.

MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA,

We started talking about markets but did not get very far. "He is obviously willing to let me do anything. But the thing itself should dictate

Spoke of feeling for Indians. His father had a cattle ranch Montana, near Little Falls. He had a ten per cent interest in this ranch with Buffalo Bill an intimate friend. BB sons owned the rest... through

BB Gene met Sitting Bull Crazy Horse and other Dakotas. These Indians apparently in the snow, after the great defeat.

Gene sick with typhoid fever in Chicago at three-Geo Tyler, his father's advance agent rushed out to get a doctor to save him. The Indians came to see him to cheer him up.

Father stayed in Chicago four weeks. Got his feeling about the Indians at that time. Salisbury BBs partner spent most of his time trying to prevent his going on a toot with a blonde. Very handsome, Salisbury had to ride herd, even so he got away with it often.

I asked about his trip to France - dates etc.

MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA,
DYNAMO written in France.

Three years in France - 1958-1962.

First in Basque country-Guethery-between Merritz and Saint Jeanne Luz. 7 months in Paris and Marseilles. From there, to the Far East. by Messageries "a ritimes. Shanghai. Four months". Had a touch of sum at Singapore because did what Englishmen and madmen did-bathed at noon. Influenza at Saigon.

Returned to France--Cap d'Ail-villa for 3 months. of Arlette d'Argerie (was she a disease?) height of fame in 1909-1910. next place belonged to Yvonne Printemps 'husband whose name we could not remember...

They were married July 22 '29. Le Plessy at Saint Atoine de Rocher.

Took a trip to Spain.

Drove through country villages-cathedrals churches. Left on the day the revolution against Alfonso broke.

Impression of country very different from what in his mind-but, granite country. Of Escurial and the spirit that built it. On cabast fertile with orange groves but within, austere and granitic. Mediaeval Catholic Guide would gossip everywhere and report. 5,000 inhabitants in Escurial, 3500 of them priests or nuns. Effect on taxation. Thus every Spanish family has a priest or nun.

the majestic poetry of Aeschylus-but he does write a superb play that better
than Aeschylus. Great argument -is it a great play or only a fine play.
Split between left and right-rightists being Catholics, who took up the
moral ground.

Starting point was an article of criticism in Paris Gringoire, in '38 or
39- WHO WROTE THIS the Roumanian? Wanted to translate Strange Interlude into
Roumanian-he wrote Gene
Or was it the Portugese who wrote this article? d. I. T.eman. Puhyal

PORTUGAL

Electra e os Fantasmos ENRIQUE GALVAO. Lib. Francisco Franco Lisbon.

1942.

Marco Milhao-1944

in beautiful leather bound copies especially for him, the Ambassador and
the Dictator. Long letters about the remarkable success. Play (Electra) ran
much longer than is usual in the small country with small cultured group.
Tremendous success and could not have been better done, was the verdict.
State Dept urged ON to give permission. in 1942. So he did.

Letter also asking for permission to translate other plays without too much
payment of royalties-permission given to translate whole so far as
Portugal is concerned without payment.

per the request of Dictator has been granted.
Galvaio has been two years in Portugese Africa-pennsylvania experience, stepped
on Dictator's foot.

ENGLAND. All plays had been given there? Continued by Repertory companies during the war.-three plays: Anna G, Our Wilderness, and Desire. M becomes Electra had been given before -was a great hit there, even bigger than here. Beatrix Lehmann, a fine actress played Lavinia. Had played in Desire. Finer press notices than here of Electra. G does not know exactly what is happening now.

JOURNE Y continued.

May 1931 returned from Canary Island with finished Electra. Completed at Los
XIXthMay returned

Palmos. Then packed and returned to USA. 1931

Summer 1931-Long Island -nice place on Katons Point near stretch of land separate
ing Katons from Northport. Very nice. Small house on beach. Half mile of beach to
self. Had Electra to put on, did not write.

Octo 1931 in New York.

Fall of '31-Sea Island for first time.

Comparitively undeveloped then-almost a private beach Rented some time, the
built. Finished in May 1932. Architect Francis Abreyu-now in Atlanta.
South AM and Cuban blood perhaps.

Lived there five years (altogether on in own house?????)

Wrote: Our Wilderness,
Days without End.
Prelim work on the cycle.

III

I

Surrey-August...

Pourning becomes Electra... of Ebrland. Last play better than
Aeschylus. though lacking the greatest poetry.

X |

Iceman-the completely stripped person clings to the last pipedream.

"Kruton said-has hardly ever written a play that deserved to be pop-
ular.(laughs.)"

"200,000" "a couple of hundred grand" made on Long Voyage Home (boxed Movie).

This was admitted by John Ford best direct or they have out there-but
was considered a flop.

Episoe of Xix Wolcott revealing that had read script of Strange Interlude in an article for his paper-he was pounced on by the Guild, and was not permitted to report the play when it came on. Dudley Nichols the star reporter, did a fine job on it instead and has been in Hollywood ever since.

Wolcott talked of "the new freedom"*or of ONBs using it...This cant be told.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
we returned to plays. Gene usually has the title from the start.
His gift for titles.

Harford, the CYCLE. In the rr, play tried to show the absurdity of the liberals
*Irish name
point of view about the rr men -said that saw before them a mt of ra
gold. That was not it. Idea that money made these people move. Gene says
rr men were poets, and their dreams of power were something more than
concern for profit of getting across the country-from NY to Frisco.
Their crazy dream was eminently practical.

Harrimans dream was to cross the Pacific-had his own boats to Japan. We wanted to go in his own ship to Valadivostock-he was blocked in "anchorage" but almost controlled the Manchurian HR. hoped to get his hooks in the Transiberian.

Harrimans long silences were noteworthy. Never could talk on anything
but business. Would sit alone or send for people.

ON went into this material with radical prejudice about important xxx
people. Got new light from Gustavus Meyers-Great American Fortunes.
Myers did endless research in libraries to get one fact. Never got mixed up in
a libert suit though also wrote The History of Tammany Hall.

Harriman in end had control of Am Transport Line--he was going to make
the circle of the globe in his own steamships-arms around the world-
but in the end had nothing.

Hero of play differs somewhat -in gaining this great power, encirclement
of globe he loses love, because he wants to possess that. This is the next-
t last play. 7th?

Sarah runs through ? because such a grand character. Has an immense palace
in Newport. She is left up to her own, deserted in palacial grounds, alone.
Servants love her. Before in other plays right in it.
In Long Days Journey into Night can see the motivating force of Gene's life
Bedrock. Extreme irianess of family.

p 4 insert

Indeed it might not be fanciful to feel that in looking back at this escapist group in whom the American dream and the human belief

that life requires us to suffer and give our best, however

little we get out of it, had failed

he was re-sensing

with his intuitive insight, the hopeless state of mind that

produced a world war. This is not said but is somehow implicit in a text which some of the young intellectuals of

the forties avid for panaceas and war messages

have found very sterile and unsatisfying.

 following p 4

(he seems to say)

look below the mean repellent surface, and complex

terrible and unadmitted aspects of the human ego come to light. A man may really hate his mother enough to destroy her. Another may despise his wife to the point of murder because she tolerates his vices and yields to his charm, instead of lambasting him and throwing him out of her life.

O'Neill has made a lot about life since he was a romanticbum, sharing a room with a suicide and wondering perhaps, with his head in theswimming in alcohol and bright dark drems, whether he would ever get out of that bar from door himself. He did, for the obvious reason that he himself, a genius of enormous will-power, a worker of workers, a man of great purity of character and dignity, had not chosen to contribute to the necessarydrama of his time.

In October 1941 he wrote a letter from his then home in Tau House in Contra Costa County, California..

"No, there is practically no chance I will be in the East for some time to come. I am not releasing any of my new plays for production. Partly because I feel it is not a time when they could be understood—whether successful or not—in their deeper meanings, but principally because of my uncertain health. The strain of New York, renaISSals etc always laid me out. All I want to do is keep on writing. It's doing the work that makes the self-content, not the exhibiting of it. That can always wait-in the hope of a less war-obsessed world."

7.

In the same letter quoted above he wrote further

"At Sea Island in '35 I wrote the scenarios in detail (about 150,000 words) for the seven plays of the Cycle, beginning 1828, ending 1932. In '35 I wrote the first play-a and then in '36 wrote another first play, taking the start of the cycle back to 1806, making eight plays in all/In the Fall of '36 my health went bad again. We left Sea Island for a complete change-went to Seattle where I was received XXr the Nobel Prize. A welcome award but the notoriety and fuss didn't help my cracked nerves. In December 836 we came down to San Francisco and Oakland-and then KXXA-X and WXXA three months in hospital with a variety of illnesses. Came near passing out for keeps and it left me with the uncertain health I've had ever since. In summer and rest of '37 I wrote still another first play for the Cycle, taking it back to 1775, making it a nine play conception. We built this home and settled here. In 881 I wrote the first play of the Cycle. Then I felt I'd gone stale on it, resolved to take a vacation by doing a play outside it. After war broke out I put the Cycle on the shelf "for the duration". In '39 I wrote "The I Caesarean Cometh". In '40 I wrote another non-Cycle play, 'Long Day's Journey into Night.' I love both these plays. They are, I know, as fine drama as I can ever write. In 141, so far, I've written scenarios for five other non-Cycle plays. My health has been poor and my mind distracted by world tragedy. But I've started one now and hope to go through with it."

when I

"So there's the history. There is a bit misleading. Don't get the idea that I consider any of the four Cycle plays I've done completely finished. Three of them, for example are double length, as long as Strange Interlude and if I can help it, I don't want them to be. Moreover, I intentionally kept each play from becoming fixed and final in all its details. Because I didn't want that to happen until all nine are written, and I could go over each with a clear picture of its exact relation to the main recurrent themes of all the other plays.

So you see that as far as labor goes, counting the three double length plays as six and the two non-Cycle plays axxive written nine plays in seven years illness or no illness. Not such a bad record of industriousness."

The scene is set up in a semicircle around the director. The scene is divided into sections, each section being a different scene. The director has complete control over the scene.

"So there's the history. There are a lot of misleading clues."

Get the idea that I consider any of the Four Cycle plays I've done completely finished. Three of them, for example, are double entendages, as long as Strange Interlude and If I can help it, I don't want them to be. Moreover, I intentionally kept each play from becoming fixed and final in all its details. Because I didn't want that to happen until all nine are written, and I could recover each with a clear picture of its exact relation to the main recurrent themes of all the other plays.

So you see that as far as labor goes, counting the three double entendages as six and the two non-Cycle plays as three write ten nine plays in seven years illness or no illness. Not such a bad record of industriousness."

The play is sisnter, because the people who a first look like "good" people-the son who has sent his mother to prison. are really ope through hate these people are the real downs and outs, those who have no further to go, except off the roof. and the represent in a murderous way, the the man isnt, shocked psyche of he who is through with itall. O Neill wasnt, and he was sentimental enough or Irish enough to want to leave the bums ranter than with a major D arbara, lets say.

with the consolations of whiskey and the pipedream. -XxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
O Neills way is to leave his characters be-be themselves.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Mostly they have been intent on tkai g what seems to the moralist
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
he just lets them go KXXXXXXXXX
or the idealist the wrong turning, ifXXXXXXXXXXXXXkXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"He seems just as avid of the "bad" ending as the Victorians were of
the good" endin KXXXXX

the good" endin KXXXXX
No play of O Neills that comes to mind ends
rXXXXXXXXXXXXXstark

happily except Ah Wilderness, and which ends with a religious
which represents, the author says a wish fulfilment, rath
conversion.

than life as it was in his own Conn boynood.............neKIXXXXXXXXXX

The classic drama found a midway point between yes and no, the victorian drama said yes, O Neill and his generation have largely said no, sometimes when yes seemed just as likely on further analysis. had the characters protagonists not been enclosed in a neurosisack sack of a neufrosis.

Take beyond the horizon, O Neills first Pulitzer Prize winner
which was writtenin 1918, Life recently called this a story of merit
New England farm

New England farm
discord. It is really the story of two brothers, who love one another
the love of the brothers never fails, and is the one spiritual oasis
trougħa thick and thin, despite their divergent natures. The woman in the
story is txXXXXXXXX inferior in spiritual calibre to the brothers both of
whom love her and becomes the pivot on which the decinnolade of a
family and a piece of NE land is based. The poet who needs to roam stays
and marries the woman who cant accept him as he is and his fortune
home and the farmer takes to the sea and loses his stature as a m
by becoming money mad the child dies the poet died of tuberculosis, and
the parents died of disappointment and the man and woman who should have
married are left to a dark questionmakr.

like neurotic people in life-
those who whenever they query their own motives,
officemight be

who say my mother did this and my husband did that and I am sick, and my mot
is impossible and so I must have a divorce-never queruing their own motiv

ive ry story in the world can be looked at from be

angles and 0" has chosen the dark angle. Though he is quoted as saying that in his own life he has said yes in his plays he says no.

bland a neurotic take the story again of Nina another predatory American female. Nina the heroine of Strange Interlude Nina is a perfect example of the too familiar Am woman whom some wit called "the cannibal wife". the woman who confuses power with love and takes and uses men instead of giving them her love and support. Nina had four men-the one who died in battle and so remained an exacting phantom lover and the three whom she tied up to herself-

Rangely Laker-

NY 11++ ++ +++

At last the "greatest" American playwright, the world playwright whose only rival is the 90-year old Bernard Shaw, the classic of the present college student

an unappeasable dragon, like some mythical monster in a legend has demanded: Give and he has given.

for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.

When O'Neill started writing lying on a snaitarium moored, or in Conn or at the age of 21 he was not certainly thinking of gaining the whole world. Though his boundless courage was with him. Only half consciously dealing with his own soul by writing plays. He might not even have known the meaning of the word neurotic at that time, when he wrote of Rank and the rest. but he was making his own neurosis work for him. He had to work to eat at this time. During some parts of his wild period his father had given him a dollar a day. "more than I do myself," Rank thought that he would in time make over two million dollars by his dramatic work, and then be privileged to write or not certainly never occurred to him in the days he was tending with the Count of Monte Cristo.

THREE

This conversation took place in a new York penthouse, outside a long booklined room where a fine rich shade of green predominates, on a windy roof where the playwright tans himself in a long chair, and eats such as he used to wear when he paddled off in his kayak in his summer evening meals, under a small duck nat lined with green, like a waiting for "X" or the atomic bomb to fall through the sunset, feeling, as he said to the dramatic reporters that mankind has had two thousand years to make good in and has failed, so let the ants take over-if he is feeling deeply this you don't know it for you see a happy man loyal to human ties, the tremor of his thin hands and glad to be alive despite "X". which makes the to a man who has always written in long hand, in a script so tion of the process of creation today a difficult thing. It takes a man to eat, perfect and so minute often than it took a magnifying glass to copy it.

(Fossibly the beginning)

@Mxxvii

TK33K

NOTES ON FLAIS

ILE

sensitive picture of a whaler's wife-who oges or is going mad because
the captain wont make a failure of his voyage for whaleoil-and stavs
too long in the Arctic.Cannot resist the pride and the financial motiv

Mrs Keeney is tender picture of a woman destroyed by male pride and are

The First Man-1921.

agaverage people hunting down the unaver

small town life as affecting an anthropologist and his wife-who has
shared his work.Family picture-relatives who read ugly explanation
into his feeling against the child that finally comes-it is the rival
of his wife connection with his work.

 relatives imply that wife has had
the child by his best friend....Small town eff-a play with little of
deep tension in it-just impatience of the small town conventions.
plus child vs,work.wife a real woman.
who has murdered white man

the Dreamy Kid-raxmerankly sentimental theme of gangster Negr-held a
at old grandmother's bedside-wont risk her curse-to leave her when
dying.his girl is a prostitute. Automatic and

Anna Christie-on the sentimental side.Swe dish coal barge father,
the prostitute who has fallen into it through ill luckani can be
reclaimed.Irish stoker....Sentimental Irishman roughneck.

Diffrent...the N Espioster,not unaware what men are in small seafaring
towns but believing her seafaring man is different.she discovers from
some rough talk that the lowaxxman she is engaged to has got into
trouble with a sout sea island woman(against is will-she swims out to
the boat-and she breaks her wedding off through all ready for it.Believ

ed he was diffrent and if not she does not love him...End of first act

a good place to stop.The second act has the twist-t-e man does not
marry waits thrifty years--meanwhile she has grown silly about a young
heel who is touching her for money and finally pretends to wants to
marry her-in consequence of her being the lover hangs himself and
all is los t.

apt Bartlett

Gold, where the Cross is made, versions of same story-shipwrecked sailors
discover what they think is gold, on an island-really brass ornaments
Capt's pipedream bought at price of murdering two of crew( cook and boy)
gets home to California, builds a loxxouxxxxkxxkxxxschooner for return
trip, with his three evil companions-wife daughter, erson daughters beau
enter in-gradual going crazy of capt. The second play, one act raxxxexxx
has a supernatural cast,d eels with imagine return of schooner,and end of
capt in his look out on roof. Mediocre plays with little interest,-xkxxkx
out moments of tension.

ROPE-One act-miser and his money and the effect of greed on a family.

Four

were in the first one act sea play, asthey are, in
to be an underdog; and have no place to go;ernaps out of the roof,
far more subtle and sophisticated form in the Iceman. h e became from
the start the mouthpiece for humble the raw, the the unacceptable aspect
of American life, The sailor on the tramp steamer; the stoker on a luxury
liner(Hairy Ape) the Negor struggling to be white (All Gods Chillun; the New
Englander devoured by repressions bursting out as lusts(Desire under the
Elms); when he wrote of an alluring American woman like Nina in Strange Inte-
lude ner revealed a figure known to Europeans in estimating American women
but less acknowledged in our midst: the woman who confuses power with love
who takes and uses men - cannibal wives somebody called them - instead of
plays
giving to them. ner real su poort and love. the total impact of the play is
and disillusioned,

is tragic, and it is probably because tetragic view of life is the European
view of life, xxx has not been the American view of life that ONs plays
have had so much importance in England, and on the continent of Europe.

whereas here only the one act plays or the lessxxdkxxdknxasxlikaxxxxxxx
like An wilderness have been given in stockor little theatres, in England
in Scandinavia, in Germany in Russia, they have been constantly in product
tion. Even during the war they were given in Russia and Portugal.

Details...

Comment

beyond the horizon as illustrating, in very simple dramatic means,
the liefs starts on a high level and deteriorates to zero level,
the life of a farm family over  years time. To call the play a story
because everyone in the story is neurotic and makes a wrong choice in lif
of marital discord is really not to describe it at all. Itsthe sotry of

two brothers wno XXXXX and they love one another through thick and thin
and however divergent their natures. are two of the realst people in On
XXX human beings should, however wrong their choices. the woman in
spiritual
the story is inferior in calibre to the men, both of whom love her
pays for her failures perhaps too heavily, since
and in the end she is an XXXX down lack of discernment. Everyone in
her inadequacy is innate. XXXX in the story she is the pivot on which the
adegringolade is based. the poet who needsto roam stavs at nome the farmer
let both remain lovelable real and
who loves the farm goes to see and loses his claibre by becoming money mad.
the child dies, the momotne loses hope,
When we hear in daily life the story of someones woes, when they
now a job is going to pieces and a we feel that is a neurotic
happen to be in an agony of neurosis, this it sound just like this, yet there
is another and a positive view to be taken

statement. Tomorrow things will be a bit different. there is the dark way
every series of facts every human story can be looked at from two angles the
dark and the bright. Oneill has saibeen quoted as saying that he personally
in his own life has said yes-he has made the positive choice despite the
dark picture he sees. his story has a dark side. the tragedy of the brotbers is the
in the story said no, no NO-and one woman's no ruined a whole series of
the woman was such a dope other lives, even to her chosen poet
lives. Maxine callssic drama found a midway point between yes and no, t e Victoria
said yes and the men of ON eills time said no say no, there is onl
one play of On where yes is said completely. Ah wilderness and he says it is
a picture of family life such as he knew it in his comradies and wishes it
for himself-but did not experience it. The real story was other far more
tragic.

His apology for it at Sea Island...

"is marriage was not happy and he finally had to leave me. There are two
finality...

Nina....predatory female....two men three men..

These stories piling up woe need not have been as they were.
Nina could not have listened to her mother in law and so not murdered her

["unborn child. She might have been a child of nature, could have been abandoned by her sendon rate and so have given a son his own father. But she and her husband were gone through the wars to marry the doctor. But she couldn't take didn't have any idea it takes to be real. San aura of unreliability hangs over her and her impact on all lives is somewhatfunereal, be quite so inherently comradly and dishonest, and ruthless.", "these women do not murder but", "a woman in desire-she might rather like the traditional life of the old, fashioned yellow back french novel, cheated the old man she married for his money by accepting the love of the beautiful young male his son. The baby is murdered-why? The father is murdered and both go off to jail. beginning of the impact of the atreus story... alone puts on paper", "Two brothers theme.", "Something wrong with the capatalist system-dangers of money.", "Sensitive picture of human beings and their motives.", "\"The putson paper the things the unconscious wants to do-murder the father does not often happen in life..\"", "NE relieved from repressions which have piled up ugly stuff.", "\"The way we do the wrong things and discover it only too late....\"", "Inality only in Electra. It has the quality of fate, with no fumble. She murders him because the Greek did not citicide and间接 does he..", "XXIX: Women are frustrated and predatory.", "People take the wrong turns because they are neurotic-going from bad to worse-Compare an analytical conversation: My husband is letting the place go", "to wrack and ruin, he cant put up with not er, he reads when he should eat, etc.-he is impractical-if you take life that way it precipitates you down until he dies.", "\"Somehow, somehow, he lives on\" (Oedipus Rex) \"TheFoolishoneselftotheismumpeistheunlimitedpursuitofpower\" (Oedipus Rex) \"TheFoolishoneselftotheismumpeistheun

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED
Skinner Our Charming Theatre.

The thing loved the lover and the test of the love remain the core of drama

lust pride and possessiveness, attended to by O'Neill/trouble with much that passes for modern tragedy is simply that it would be high comedy if not so unhappy.

We have evolved a sort of psychopathic sadism...

Strange Interlude probes deeply and terribly into the recesses of a neurotic mind-Nina. Into many other types of mind, and as a work of intuïv, though untrained psychology it is a monumental achievement. Power and ruthless searching of his mind.

morbid story of medicore people - gave it universal impe by careful side exposition of motives; conscious and unconscious.

Asides touch on experiences common to nearly all mankind. On applies spiritual x-ray to souls of his characters. Every few minutes characters remain staty and speak out truth. conelasing from each other. He has made charc reveal hidden depths of which they selves almost unconscious.

No resolution of conflicting forces.

Dynamo failure at the Guild. Marks a crisis in ON creative life, illustrates some of the untoward things which may happen to a poet who tries to become a philosopher.

had given up some time before writing about life as he had experienced it. Had taken up dissecting inmost impulses of mind in terms of obj drama. In one sense later work more truly creative itne charac and env springing directly from his mind representing life for ces and viewpoints rather than real types. Role of philosophic poet, seeking to interp problems of day through drama. Has found poet in self at war with groping thinker. authentic charc of work has suffered from the conflict.

In mind pf public had become oje of Am sleading thinkers on more important questions of life. Thinking trite, shallow, overinfld by emotions. Real impe in strength of raw feelings and ability to convert these feelings into dramatic situations that swep over an audience like flame. Sense of the atrical values real and true. Words apt. clothes feeling toward a character in clamorous words, and in double thick atmosphere of theatrical suggestion. Thus endows it with something like universal impe.

ON rest establishes through emotions, Univ import of simple things.

On tries to intellectualize prim poetic power, without good results. One neutralises the other.-War bet- intelce and emotions.

On Am stage. Man who first brought intuitive tragic sense to mature power ideal and vast mt of disillusionment, drabness, irony decay which sees about him. Witness ot innumerable minor tragendies both of soul and body that escape most of us in preoccupatn with obvious taks of life. Be comes a torture part of themand in a mood bet- exasperatn and bitter pain lays them bare.