Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Celebrant of loss: Eugene O'Neill 1888-1953
- 2 O'Neill's philosophical and literary paragons
- 3 O'Neill and the theatre of his time
- 4 From trial to triumph: the early plays
- 5 The middle plays
- 6 The late plays
- 7 Notable American stage productions
- 8 O'Neill on screen
- 9 O'Neill's America: the strange interlude between the wars
- 10 O'Neill's African and Irish-Americans: stereotypes or “faithful realism”?
- 11 O'Neill's female characters
- 12 "A tale of possessors self-dispossessed"
- 13 Trying to write the family play: autobiography and the dramatic imagination
- 14 The stature of Long Day's Journey Into Night
- 15 O'Neill and the cult of sincerity
- 16 O'Neill criticism
- Select bibliography of full-length works
- Index
10 - O'Neill's African and Irish-Americans: stereotypes or “faithful realism”?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Celebrant of loss: Eugene O'Neill 1888-1953
- 2 O'Neill's philosophical and literary paragons
- 3 O'Neill and the theatre of his time
- 4 From trial to triumph: the early plays
- 5 The middle plays
- 6 The late plays
- 7 Notable American stage productions
- 8 O'Neill on screen
- 9 O'Neill's America: the strange interlude between the wars
- 10 O'Neill's African and Irish-Americans: stereotypes or “faithful realism”?
- 11 O'Neill's female characters
- 12 "A tale of possessors self-dispossessed"
- 13 Trying to write the family play: autobiography and the dramatic imagination
- 14 The stature of Long Day's Journey Into Night
- 15 O'Neill and the cult of sincerity
- 16 O'Neill criticism
- Select bibliography of full-length works
- Index
Summary
Eugene O'Neill came early to recognize the fakery of the commercial theatre. It was in that “hateful” institution, after all, that his own father had gained fortune and celebrity. Yet, no matter how much he ridiculed the cardboard world of popular melodrama, young O'Neill grew in knowledge as he moved about freely in his father's house. “. . . I was practically brought up in the theatre - in the wings - and I know all the technique of acting. I know everything that everyone is doing from the electrician to the stage hands” (Cargill et al., 112). In the same way he became acquainted with the sensational effects obtained by producer-illusionist David Belasco, who specialized in snapshot realism. But O'Neill, who criticized Belasco, was himself innovator enough to use any device he thought might advance his dramatic intention.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Eugene O'Neill , pp. 148 - 163Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998