Eugene O'Neill and Theatre Collection

Mary C. Henderson

The Theatre and Theatre Collections / Le théâtre et les collections de documents

International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts
16th International Congress, London, 9-13 September 1985
Proceedings of the Congress

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des arts du spectacle
16ème Congres Internationale, Londres, 9-13 september 1985
Procès-Verbal

London 1986, pp. 85-87, [French abstract], pp. 87

In 1930, Harding Scholle, the second director of the new Museum of the City of New York,was facing a crisis. As he and his staff were preparing to move into their new building, he was aware that several of the individual collections lacked substantial materials. One of them was the Theatre Collection, which had begun like the rest of the museum without any significant donations to that time. Although the Theatre Collection had succeeded in accumulating photographs, posters, programs and the like, in limited quantities, it had not one basic collection to form its core. Scholle, who had attended the famed Harvard "47 Workshop" under Professor George Pierce Baker, remembered that one of the many famous graduates of that program was Eugene O'Neill. At that time, O'Neill was generally looked upon as the potentially most important playwright America had ever produced. Scholle did what every good museum director has done (and will continue to do) for years: he asked O'Neill to donate something significant from his career to the museum. The director reached O'Neill in France at the chateau he and his wife rented in the Loire valley. With characteristic modesty, O'Neill replied to Scholle in the following words:

Thank you for your letter. I am only too pleased that the Museum of the City of New York should want anything of mine. The original longhand scripts that I desire to turn over to you are those of the first play of mine to be produced in New York--"Bound East for Cardiff," the most popular of my shorter plays--and of "Beyond the Horizon" my first long play to be done in New York, which won for me my first Pulitzer Prize. These scripts are written in pencil but I am informed there is some sort of wash that prevents the lead from blurring and fading out. But you, of course, will know more about this than I do.

The scripts are in a safe deposit in New York. I am writing to my lawyer and he will arrange to take them out and place them in your hands before the opening of the museum.

With all sincere respects to you,

Yours very truly
Eugune O'Neill

After this initial contact with O'Neill, the playwright was to give the Theatre Collection nine other autograph manuscripts, his father's promptscript for Monte Cristo and a painting of Times Square in 1946, the year that his play The Iceman Cometh was produced in New York. From 1930 to 1954, O'Neill materials continued to flow into the Theatre Collection. May Davenport Seymour, the first curator of the collection, embarked on a lively correspondence with both of the O'Neills, husband and wife, but as Carlotta Monterey O'Neill began acting more and more in her husband's name, Mrs Seymour addressed and received letters from her alone.

Carlotta O'Neill contributed personal items such as her husband's walking canes and articles of clothing as well as family pictures, each carefully inscribed on the reverse with her comments. In 1942, fearing the consequences of the war, Carlotta donated more to the Theatre Collection for safekeeping. In 1954, a year after her husband's death, she deposited the last of her gifts, which included a favourite sweater of the playwright.

In gratitude for the early O'Neill gifts, Mrs Seymour mounted an exhibition on the careers of James and Eugene O'Neill in 1934. A second exhibition occurred in 1973, when Theodore Fetter was curator, and included materials from other collections where materials had been deposited. By that time, the bulk of the O'Neill papers had been donated to the Beinecke Library of Yale University.

Beginning in 1948, Carlotta O'Neill had begun to deposit the O'Neill "work diaries" with Yale. The decision of the O'Neills to turn these precious papers to Yale instead of the Museum of the City of New York was understandable. In 1926, Yale had bestowed an honorary degree on O'Neill, the only one he would ever accept. Furthermore, O'Neill's son and namesake had attended Yale as a student and had served on the faculty as a classics instructor before his untimely death. Finally, O'Neill's former mentor, George Pierce Baker, had founded the Yale School of Drama. These represented compelling reasons for the transference of their attention to Yale, but what cannot be forgotten is the museum's role in raising O'Neill's consciousness to the necessity of giving his papers for safekeeping to a responsible institution. His letter to Scholle even voices his concern over the preservation of his manuscripts written in pencil.

At Yale, Donald Gallup, the curator of the Beinecke Library, supervised the accessions of the O'Neill papers and eventually transcribed the work diaries for publication. After the playwright's death, it was his responsibility to chose from the O'Neill library what should be preserved, such as the playwright's copy of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, and what could be disposed of to other sources. 'Among the non-book materials which went to Yale is an actual recording of the playwright's voice reading a speech from Long Day's Journey into Night.

On Carlotta O'Neill's death in 1970, the royalties to the major plays and future productions and publications were bequeathed to Yale. (0'Neill's descendants share in the rights and royalties of the others.) Administered by Yale, this fund is apportioned in three ways. One third is dedicated to the preservation and augmentation of the O'Neill Collection; one third, for the purchase of books on the drama; and the final third, to the Yale Drama School.

Because of the fund, Yale has been able to expand the original O'Neill papers with other collections which the curators have been able to purchase. More O'Neill letters and other manuscript materials h ave come into the collection as well as papers from his friends and contemporaries. The Yale collections benefits from donations, particularly from photographs and information on productions done outside of the United States. Other collections, such as the Theatre Guild files, had properly added dimension to the O'Neill papers, since the Guild was the chief producer of his later plays.

Although the O'Neill Collection at the Beinecke Library is the single most important depository of the playwright's papers, there are other manuscripts, letters and materials scattered at other collections. The Harvard Theatre Collection contains nearly a hundred letters written by the playwright to his first wife, Agnes Boulton, and the masks used in the original production of The Great God Brown. The Dartmouth College Library, the Princeton University Theatre Collection, the New York Public Library and the Hoblitzelle Collection at the University of Texas all list manuscript and other materials of O'Neill, his family and his friends. The Hoblitzelle Collection has a rare "home movie" of the playwright and his family in Bermuda.

From all of the materials in the various collections, I will select the most representative for inclusion in a centennial exhibition for O'Neill, which will open on his 99th birthday at the Museum of the City of New York in 1987. The exhibition will travel to five or six other locations in the United States and, we hope, abroad. The American Theatre Association, which is sponsoring the exhibition, invites the participation of any institution which would like to join in America's celebration of its greatest playwright.

[French abstract], pp. 87

En 1930, déjà reconnu comme l'auteur dramatique principal de l'Amérique, Eugene O'Neill donna duex de ses manuscrits à la Collection Théâtrale du Museum of the City of New York en réponse à une lettre de Harding Scholle, ancien directeur du musée. De ce moment-là jusqu'en 1954, O'Neill seul, puis avec sa femme Carlotta Monterey, et finalement Mme. O'Neill seule, continuaient à placer des manuscrits, des lettres, des photographies, de l'art original, des programmes, des effets personnels, et d'autres papiers dans la Collection Théâtrale. Deux exhibitions furent montées avec les matières d'O'Neill: la première en 1934, comme hommage à Eugene et son père, l'acteur célèbre James ONeill, êt la deuxiem, en 1973, en l'honneur d'Eugene O'Neill, dramaturge.

In 1948, les O'Neill commencèrent à donner des matières à Yale University. Elles se trouvent à la bibliothèque Beinecke de Yale. C'est la collection la plus importante des matières O'Neill, bien que d'autres papiers se trouvent également aux universités Harvard, Princeton, Texas et à la New York Public Library. A la mort de Mme. O'Neill, les droit et droits d'auteur des pièces célèbres d'O'Neill furent légués à Yale, le montant desquels est maintenant un fonds utilisé pour aider à soutenir la collection, la bibliothèque, et l'école dramatique de Yale.

En 1987, l'American Theatre Association va subventionner l'exhibition centenaire d'Eugene O'Neill qui aura lieu à l'occasion du quatre-vingt-dix-neuvième anniversaire de sa naissance au Museum of the City of New York. Ensuite, cette exhibition visitera d'autres régions des Etats-Unis et, on espère, ira jusqu'à l'étranger. On invite la participation de n'importe quelle institution qui voudrait se joindre à la célébration américaine de son plus grand auteur dramatique.

16th Congress

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