Hip Young Things

Eugene O’Neill was an American playwright who was born in New York City in 1888. One of the things he is most remembered for is being one of the initial founders of the genre of theatre now well known as realism. This form of theatre is also closely associated with the Russian playwright Anton Checkhov, who worked closely with Konstantin Stanislavski, the founder and creator of the technique of acting known as the method system. O’Neill was greatly respected in his day, and remains one of the most respected American writers of the 20th century. Tourists staying in everything from the top luxury to the New York cheap hotel will relate to the characters and situations found in O’Neill’s plays.

O’Neill is recognized as being the first or one of the first writers to draw his characters from the fringes of society and write his dialogue from the American vernacular. This was revolutionary to the stage, and initiated an era of theatre that allowed for greater audience identification with the play and characters. Most of his works contain an element of tragedy, they are also heavily auto-biographical, and are weighted with the drama of human disparity and hopelessness. He is recognized as having written only one comedy, Ah Wilderness, which was a coming of age story and was much different from his standard style.

Some of O’Neill’s most well known works are A Moon For the Misbegotten, The Hairy Ape, Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. His first published play, Beyond the Horizon, was produced on Broadway in 1920 and received great critical acclaim. It also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He would later win another one for Anna Christie, and a third for Strange Interlude. Other major playwrights associated with realism include the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen and the Swedish playwright August Strindberg.

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