Being the son of a famous romantic actor, Eugene O’Neill was well acquainted with the American theater of the late XIX - early XX centuries and passionately hated him. I hated melodramas written in bad language, did not recognize the acting style and the lack of ensemble, full of cliches, and rejected the naturalness of scenography. Speaking as an innovative playwright, he sought to create a completely different type of theater. O’Neill's early plays are a riot against an established commercial theater tradition. In O’Neill’s early plays, the main characters were social types of the lower...

One of the earliest works of the American classic Eugene O’Neill, relating to his expressionist period. The focus of the plot is the clash of classes in capitalist America at the beginning of the 20th century. The play is about the humiliating difference between work and wealth, and people who become victims of this gap....