eugene o'neill poll/discussion

im starting vol 1 of the two volume bio by louis sheaffer, v good so far this volume won the pulitzer (seemingly 6 yrs after its publication? idgi)

really like this newspaper excerpt, not by o'neill but painting the picture of new london:

Few places could have celebrated the Fourth of July with more enthusiasm than the town on the Thames, as a story in the New London Telegraph on July 4, 1902, suggests: "Well, it is here: the Glorious Fourth, with its powder smell, its din, its litter of fireworks rubbish, its ecstatic small boy and his headachey, worried parents; its burned fingers, its excursions, its baseball fetes and its sleepy eyes: its jags, its tin horns and its million and one detonations of greater or less degree; it is here to be suffered or enjoyed, according to temperament and years; to harass horses and make glad the street car conductors; to put dollars into the pockets of the purveyors of fun and noise and to keep the doctors busy; to fill the air with the smell of brimstone and the stomach of the small kid with soda water."

also of interest (to me only perhaps), his dad's press agent's name was A. Toxen Worm

https://www.nytimes.com/1922/01/15/archives/a-toxen-worm-dead-wellknown-theatrical-agent-dies-of-apoplexy-in.html

on to volume 2, this is prob the best biography of anyone ive ever read~

good bit re casting of 'the emperor jones'

"Are you Charles Gilpin?" a deputized Provincetowner inquired as he got on the elevator. "Yes. Corsets, ladies' underthings--second floor." "Are you an experienced actor?" "Yes. Glassware, silverware, household furnishings." "We have a good part for you in a play by Eugene O'Neill." "How good? Draperies, upholsteries, linens." "The leading part. Would you like to act again?" "Yes, what's the pay?" Furniture, bedclothing, bathroom supplies--fifth floor." "The best we can pay is fifty dollars." "It's a deal. Going down. Where do I go?"

He had read but a few lines at the Provincetown when all present felt that he was the man for the role; in fact the selection of Gilpin as Brutus Jones--the first Negro ever cast by a white American company for a major role--was to prove one of the ideal combinations of actor and part in American theater history.