Thirst: “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”

By Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888 in a hotel bedroom in what is now Times Square, New York. Much of his childhood was spent in the comfort of books at boarding schools whilst his actor father was on the road and his Mother contended with her own demons. He spent only a year at University - Princeton - and various reasons have been given for his departure. However whatever his background and education denied or added to his development it is agreed amongst all that he was a playwright of the first rank and possibly America's greatest. His introduction of realism into American drama was instrumental in its development and paved a path for many talents thereafter. Of course his winning of both the Pulitzer Prize (4 times) and the Nobel Prize are indicative of his status. His more famous and later works do side with the disillusionment and personal tragedy of those on the fringes of society but continue to build upon ideas and structures he incorporated in his early one act plays. Eugene O'Neill suffered from various health problems, mainly depression and alcoholism. In the last decade he also faced a Parkinson's like tremor in his hands which made writing increasingly difficult. But out of such difficulties came plays of the calibre of The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Eugene O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783949670

Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O’Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the US the drama techniques of realism, earlier associated with international playwrights Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day’s Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest US plays in the twentieth century, alongside Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

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Thirst by Eugene O’Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888 in a hotel bedroom in what is now Times Square, New York.  Much of his childhood was spent in the comfort  of books at boarding schools whilst his actor father was on the road and his Mother contended with her own demons.  He spent only a year at University - Princeton - and various reasons have been given for his departure.

However whatever his background and education denied or added to his development it is agreed amongst all that he was a playwright of the first rank and possibly America's greatest.  His introduction of realism into American drama was instrumental in its development and paved a path for many talents thereafter.  Of course his winning of both the Pulitzer Prize (4 times) and the Nobel Prize are indicative of his status.  His more famous and later works do side with the disillusionment and personal tragedy of those on the fringes of society but continue to build upon ideas and structures he incorporated in his early one act plays.

Eugene O'Neill suffered from various health problems, mainly depression and alcoholism.  In the last decade he also faced a Parkinson's like tremor in his hands which made writing increasingly difficult. But out of such difficulties came plays of the calibre of  The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Eugene O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room.

Index Of Contents

Characters

Scene

Eugene O’Neill – A Short Biography

Eugene O’Neill – A Concise Bibliography

CHARACTERS

A GENTLEMAN

A DANCER

A WEST INDIAN MULATTO SAILOR

SCENE

A steamer’s life raft rising and falling slowly on the long ground-swell of a glassy tropic sea. The sky above is pitilessly clear, of a steel blue color merging into black shadow on the horizon’s rim. The sun glares down from straight overhead like a great angry eye of God. The heat is terrific. Writhing, fantastic heat-waves rise from the white deck of the raft. Here and there on the still surface of the sea the fins of sharks may be seen slowly cutting the surface of the water in lazy circles.

Two men and a woman are on the raft. Seated at one end is a West Indian mulatto dressed in the blue uniform of a sailor. Across his jersey may be seen the words Union Mail Line in red letters. He has on rough sailor shoes. His head is bare. When he speaks it is in drawling sing-song tones as if he were troubled by some strange impediment of speech. He croons a monotonous negro song to himself as his round eyes follow the shark fins in their everlasting circles.

At the other end of the raft sits a middle-aged white man in what wads once an evening dress; but sun and salt water have reduced it to the mere caricature of such a garment. His white shirt is stained and rumpled; his collar a formless pulp about his neck; his black tie a withered ribbon. Evidently he had been a first­class passenger. Just now he cuts a