A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions

Eugene O'Neill was an American dramatist. His poetically themed plays were among the first in the United States to use realism drama techniques, which had previously been associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night, along with Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, is frequently featured in lists of the best American plays of the twentieth century. He received the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. O'Neill is the only author to have won four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. O'Neill's plays were among the first to feature talks in American English vernacular and characters from the margins of society. They try to retain their ambitions and objectives, but eventually succumb to disillusionment and despair. Only one of his few comedies has received widespread recognition. Almost all of his other plays contain some element of sorrow and personal pessimism. O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in the Barrett House hotel at Broadway and 43rd Street, in what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square), New York City. A commemorative plaque was first installed there in 1957. The location is presently filled by 1500 Broadway, which contains offices, retail, and the ABC Studios.