Eugene O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in a hotel room on Broadway in New York. The place is unusual, but also symbolic for the future playwright, whose childhood passed between hotels, boarding houses and constant relocations. By the age of 49, O'Neill had lived in more than 35 places before settling in Tao House in Danville, California.
The American writer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936 and remains the only playwright from the United States to be awarded the distinction. He also won four “Pulitzer“ prizes. Behind the public success, however, stands a man with an increasingly strict regime, a strong need for silence and habits that seem unusual to others.
His day began early and ended far from people
At Tao House, O'Neill usually got up early and worked without interruption until about 1 p.m. After lunch, he slept, swam or walked with his wife Carlotta Monterey. Sometimes, however, he stayed over his manuscripts until late at night.
The house was arranged so that the writer could completely isolate himself. His office had several doors, and Monterey protected his work from visitors and interruptions. She explained his behavior with a simple principle: “He does not like to give away energy that can and should be reserved for his work.“
In the evening, O'Neill read or listened to jazz and blues. Another characteristic of his was his attachment to the place he lived in. Tao House was the only home he stayed in for six years, the longest continuous period at one address in his life.
Only a Pencil, No Substitute
O'Neill wrote his plays by hand with a pencil. When he developed a severe tremor toward the end of his life, he was unable to replace this method with dictation or any other technique. The neurological disease gradually made it impossible to hold a pencil, and after 1943 he could no longer write plays.
This limitation was especially painful because for O'Neill, writing was not just a profession. It was a way to organize his memories and return to the most difficult moments in his family history. In his late plays “Long Day's Journey Into Night“ and "The Iceman is Coming" personal experience becomes dramaturgy.
The Mirror as a Test of Existence
The most memorable quirk associated with his character is his habit of constantly looking around. His friend George Cram Cook once asked him why he did it and called him the most vain person he knew. O'Neill's answer was: "No, I just want to make sure I'm here."
The line sounds like a joke, but it well describes the writer, who throughout his life searched for a sense of identity. He was withdrawn and silent in unfamiliar company, preferring conversations with few people and avoiding the noise of the theater when he could devote himself to work.
Eugene O'Neill died on November 27, 1953 in Boston. He left behind plays in which family memory, loneliness and addictions are not a background, but a driving force of the action. His strange habits - early writing, strict isolation, a pencil and a mirror - seem like small details, but together they outline the character of a man who turned his own restlessness into literature.
Sources: nps.gov, pbs.org