Eugene O'Neill and His Pursuit of the Perfect Stage Performance

Abstract

  The famous playwright, Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), not only wrote scripts and screenplays for his productions but also applied his own hand to designing sets and scenes for the stage. While doing so, in order to best express the intended theme of his plays he crafted his stage directions as finely as possible. With these things in mind, what manner of endeavor did O’Neill considering directing plays to be? This paper seeks to explore these issues, which premise the production of such performances, through thorough examination of several of O’Neill’s texts – both long and short – while giving concrete examples, and in doing so will strive to consider just what a kind of playwright O’Neill is and where they should stand in relation to their plays.