All of O’Neill’s themes and concerns find expression in his one-act plays. They are the dramatic equivalent of short stories. Here gathered in a single volume are nine one-act plays that span the playwright’s career—from the early sea plays to the Expressionist masterpiece The Hairy Ape to the eerie nocturnal monologue Hughie. Included in this volume: Bound East for Cardiff • Fog • Thirst • The Long Voyage Home • Ile • The Moon of the Caribbees • In the Zone • The Hairy Ape • Hughie
Author
American playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill authored Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 among his works; he won the Nobel Prize of 1936 for literature, and people awarded him his fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night , produced in 1956. He won his Nobel Prize "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism that Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg pioneered to Americans and first used true American vernacular in his speeches. His plays involve characters, who, engaging in depraved behavior, inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness! , his only comedy: all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
