excerpts from
The Lovers and Others of Eugene O’Neill
from
The Best American Short Plays 2008–2009
AGNES BOULTON (Eugene O’Neill’s second wife)
[Masked.]
“And if you’ve suffered all these years, imagine how I’ve suffered? All this time . . . I loved. I’ve lain awake nights longing for you and knowing that you hated me and knowing that if I told the truth . . . and set you free—that you’d go . . . and I’d never see you again!”1
[The bell rings; the simple white mask is removed. AGNES is a tall, lithe, and an exotically attractive woman in her mid-30s. She is O’Neill’s second wife and the mother of his children. She is fashionably dressed in a rimless hat from the 1920s that hugs her pale aquiline face. She holds a short cigarette holder with an unlit cigarette at the end. She is a bit nervous . . . hesitant . . . perhaps slightly high-strung. There is, however, a pragmatic steadiness in her voice that comes from dealing with or escaping from the realities of life. Agnes is intelligent, articulate, and a writer in her own right. She seems flustered, a bit confused in not knowing where she is, or how she got here.]
[Unmasked.]
Well, I do feel a little awkward.
[She shrugs.]
I mean, here I am . . . Agnes Bolton, the wife who failed the great Eugene O’Neill!
[AGNES walks over to the table where stand five candles. Four are burning. Carlotta has already snuffed out her own before AGNES entered. The lit candles are part of what seems to be a makeshift shrine to the playwright who is represented by a large, 8" × 10" black-and-white photo that grimly stares out at the audience. Four of the candles represent the spirit and potential in the predominant women in his life—Carlotta, Agnes, Sarah, and Ella, and the fifth one is reserved for Eugene O’Neill. Puzzled by this display, AGNES is about to light her cigarette with one of them, then thinking better of it, returns to her chair the second one stage right—next to the first and most important one belonging to his mother and closest to the shrine; her cigarette remains unlit. She absentmindedly attempts to puff on it during her monologue.]
You know, it took me many years to realize that our failed marriage was not entirely my fault, if in fact it was my fault at all! No, I think Eugene and I would have parted company with or without Carlotta in the picture. Well, let me see . . .
[Pause.]
what can I tell you about him . . . I mean, that’s why you’ve come, isn’t it? Well, I can begin with the first time we met. It was at a little bar somewhere in the West Village, Bleecker Street, I think. I knew who he was—everyone did. But on this particular evening he walked in, sat down at my table, and proceeded to stare at me for the longest time. Well, I was young enough to feel flattered. I thought he was intoxicated with my very presence until I realized that he was not staring at me, but at his own reflection in the mirror directly behind me! “Mr. O’Neill,” I said, “why are you staring at yourself, people will think you’re conceited.” To which he indignantly replied, “I am not conceited. I stare at myself to make sure I’m still there!” Well, it was always my innocent questions, my candid remarks that would get me into trouble with Gene. He hated having anyone challenge his well-rehearsed public persona . . . “thee Poet!” As a matter of fact, I don’t think he ever liked me very much. He was jealous. Oh yes, he was! He could grow jealous just watching me smoke!
[She attempts to draw on her unlit cigarette, glances with frustration at the burning candles.]
He was jealous of the fact that I too was a writer, with a personality and an ego of my own. He hated my innocence, my sense of fun, my human fallibility . . . and on many an occasion he would strike out at me with his fists. His inner rage would strike out at my vulnerability.
[She pauses.]
You see, my vulnerability reminded him of his own. He was in love with his own tragic concept of life, so you mustn’t pity him. He loved being tortured! And I cannot think of a more supreme torture than for him to have married Carlotta, that actress! Well, I have to admit, I was taken a bit by surprise. . . . I mean, after all, just between you and me, Carlotta was no intellectual genius. I thought he’d grow bored with her after a time . . . but apparently his need for a mother and caretaker far outweighed his need for a lover and intellectual companion. Oh, don’t get me wrong we did have our good times, you know. Lying on the beach . . . watching the seagulls gliding overhead. Gene used to imagine himself a seagull . . . free from domestic care and responsibility. But inevitably one of my irreverent remarks would bring him plummeting back down to earth again. “Gene,” I’d say, “seagulls must land eventually, you know . . . dirty diapers, children’s vomit on the backseat.” That is the one thing I shall never forgive him for . . . the way he treated our children. It would have been better if he had abandoned them altogether, but he enjoyed holding power over them even from a distance. There was no pleasing him, no matter how hard they tried. No one could please him. I certainly couldn’t please him . . . so I gave my “artist” husband the freedom he said he so desperately needed. The illusion of freedom so often maintained by the male sex . . . and what does he do with it? He walks right through the open door and into captivity . . . into the waiting arms of Carlotta, his beloved jailer!
[Looking over at the photo of O’Neill.]
Well, I’m sorry, Gene, but I do believe in telling it as I see it. You know I’ve always been that way.
[She walks confidently over to the burning candles, lights her cigarette with one of them, and takes a satisfying puff, then turns again to the audience.]
You see I knew him better than anyone; I knew him better than he knew himself.
[She blows out her candle; the bell rings.]
• • • •
SARAH SANDY (Eugene O’Neill’s Nanny)
[Masked.]
“I hope I know him better than you . . . sleepin’ like a baby—so innocent-looking. You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It all goes to show—you never can tell by appearances.”2
[Bell rings; her simple white mask is removed. SARA SANDY is a tight, compact, top-heavy little woman in her early sixties. When Eugene O’Neill was a small boy, she was hired to serve as his nanny. Her outward appearance is one of a jovial, friendly woman, but her words reveal a frustrated, dualistic thinking alcoholic whose twisted sense of humor bordering on sadism, belies a penchant for abuse. She sits in the third chair farthest from the O’Neill shrine.]
[Unmasked.]
Now you’re goin’ to hear it from the horse’s mouth; and anyone who knows me can tell ye I’m not one to exaggerate. Master Gene was the dearest, sweetest little boy that ever a nanny could love. I used to call him me little sailor lad, that’s ’cause he loved the sea, see.
[Opens a small flask of brandy, pours some into the cap.]
Oh, he loved the sea, he did . . . loved the sea. Must a’been the Irish in him . . . give ’em a little boat to bob about in, and they’re as happy as clams!
[Takes a discreet sip from the cap, then screws it back on the bottle.]
Now that I have your undivided attention, I’m goin’ to set an ugly rumor straight once and for all. Contrary to what you may have heard, I did not scare the livin’ bejesus’ out of him with horror stories. I did not! I told him little fairy tales as any good nanny would. Ah, sure, you don’t think I’d frighten the lad, do ye? And even if I did, wasn’t I there to comfort him? That’s more than I can say for his family. Now take his mother . . . there was a tragic hoot. Missed her callin’ to be a nun, no doubt o’ that. And she be weepin’ and wailin’ about her lot in life . . . blamin’ her husband and the like— and sure why not? Father and sons alike drinkin’ and shoutin’ night and day, why it’d be enough to drive a saint mad! Then again, who wouldn’t be driven to drink with a spook of a mother like that? Now I’m not sayin’ that Gene didn’t do his share of drinkin’ and shoutin’ when he was a man, but when he was a boy, he was the dearest sweetest little boy you’d ever want to know. Why, I remember one day he comes up to me, couldn’t a’ been more than that high . . .
[Indicates height of a four-year-old child.]
the tears rollin’ down his cheeks, and he says to me, he says, “Nanny Sarie”— that’s what he used to call me see, Nanny, or Sarie, or Nanny Sarie . . . he comes up to me and he says, “Nanny Sarie, I seen dead seagull on the beach.”
“Did ye now?” says I. “Well, we’ll just have to go and take a look at it then, won’t we?” And so off we did trot through the sand, until we come upon a dead seagull, and sure enough it was dead . . . as dead as dead as ever I’d seen dead; and it’d been dead for some time, no doubt o’ that!
[She pinches her nose recalling the stench.]
“Yes, Master Gene,” says I, “that is indeed a dead seagull.” And then he says to me, “Nanny Sarie, will the seagull go to heaven?” “Of course, my little lad, the seagull will go to heaven. It will go to seagull heaven.”
[Directed to the audience.]
Now I wasn’t sure about that, mind ye’, but I’m thinkin’ to meself, where the hell else would a seagull go? Yes, my lad, the seagull will go to seagull heaven. “Should we give it a Christian burial then?” asks he.
[Directed to the audience.]
A Christian burial for a seagull? A seagull is no Christian! Now I don’t know much about much, but I do know that much! “No, Master Gene,” says I, “a seagull should be buried out to sea like one o’ them heathen Vikings and the like, see . . . and when the tide comes up, a great wave will roll over the little seagull, and gently carry its body out into the deep blue sea . . . and there it will be rocked to and fro, to and fro, to sleep in peace for ever more. But if it’s not been a good little seagull, the sharks will tear it to pieces bit by bit!”
[She laughs gleefully.]
Well, he seemed quite content with that answer I can tell ye!
[Bell rings; she stands.]
Oh, there’s the bell—ringy-dingy-dingy, how time goes by when you’re havin’ fun! I just want to pay me last respects to Master Gene . . .
[She walks over to the photo of Eugene O’Neill surrounded by the remaining lit candles and addresses the photo.]
Master Gene darlin’, you know your Nanny loved you best. She loved ye loved ye loved ye to death, she did!
[The bell rings again.]
Alright, alright! I’m leavin’ for Christ’s sakes!
[She extinguishes her candle leaving three out of five lit, and the bell rings.]
• • • •
ELLA O’NEILL (Eugene O’Neill’s mother)
[Masked.]
“It’s not the fog I mind. I love the fog. It hides you from the world and the world from you. No one can see you or touch you anymore.”3
[The bell rings, and the simple white mask is removed. A pale, delicately built woman stands before the audience. Despite her spent look, it’s obvious she had once been an attractive debutant, and at one time an accomplished classical pianist. ELLA is dressed in mourning black—with a black Victorian bonnet and cape trimmed in ermine. She is the mother of Eugene O’Neill. Her twisted, arthritic hands are hidden inside snow-white gloves. She appears frightened and anxious. Her nervous energy is frenetic and agitated. All her concentration is focused on staying in control. Her thoughts are scattered and fragmented. She seems to have a dual personality—one is a good little girl, obedient and self-effacing—a model of social acceptability; the other is raging against her restricted life. She is the pure embodiment of “lover” and “other,” and represents the dualism between the “authentic self” and her socially inherited feminine mystique. She has been a morphine addict for many years, and although her unbalanced state of mind can be attributed to this addiction, her agony over not being a whole and independent human being manifested long before her introduction to this drug. She begins to speak in a soft, girlish voice falsely animated and carefree.]
[Unmasked.]
Eugene was my very special boy . . . my gift from God. I so wanted him to join the priesthood— he was so delicate and frail. He would have been safe there you see. He would have been my gift to God, my salvation for all the sins I have committed. Perhaps if I had told him that heaven was the sea and the Holy Ghost a free flying gull, perhaps then I should have persuaded him.
[She hesitates, not knowing where to go or what to do, like an actor who has forgotten her lines and is struck with stage fright. Carlotta’s voice (O’Neill’s third and last wife) speaks through ELLA and addressing her, “Oh, sit down for God’s sake, we don’t have all night!” ELLA looks about to see who has spoken, then recognizes and addresses the audience.]
Oh, yes! Of course . . . thank you.
[She sits, arranges herself primly in her chair—the one closest to the O’Neill shrine—and speaks with childish glee.]
I think he takes after his father, James! James O’Neill the great, handsome actor who swept me away, and beguiled me into marriage when I was just a girl. Oh, how I loved him so . . . as he loves me, as he loves me, as he . . .
[ELLA drifts away from her thoughts, looks down at her gnarled gloved hands and in so doing, transforms from a sweet and retiring girl-like countenance to a bitter old woman who has been betrayed by life. Her voice deepens.]
It’s not my fault, you know, the way the boys turned out—all that drinking and carousing. They have their father to blame for that! I come from a respectable family, not James. What is he anyway . . . just a two-bit matinee idol, dragging his family from theater to theater, living out of suitcases, hotel rooms, or staring down at the barroom floors! If the boys had been raised in a proper home everything would have been different. That’s all I ever wanted, you know, a real home . . . a home of my own with friends and neighbors to talk to.
[Her voice grows louder, strident and more desperate.]
No, I never should have married so young—never, never, never, should have . . . !
[She claps her gloved hands over her mouth to regain her composure. She enters a morphine-induced “other world” . . . a dream state. She speaks in the plaintive voice of a lost child.]
I wonder what it would have been like if I had never married? Perhaps I should have devoted my life to God. Oh yes! I should have been happy then. Or perhaps I should have been a great musician. Everyone said I played the piano beautifully.
[She begins to play the imaginary keys of a piano with her twisted, arthritic fingers while humming the song “Gene O’Dreams”—the melody originating with the plaintive folk song “John O’Dreams.”]
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
[Upon seeing her own deformed hands, she quickly draws them to her breast and with obvious embarrassment, hides them in her lap. Gaining composure, she begins to speak in a controlled monotone, as if reciting a mantra.]
You can’t undo the past. What’s done is done. Things are as they are, and will end, as they must.
[She regains her composure and resumes speaking again with child-like enthusiasm.]
We were not expecting Eugene to come along. That is why he is my special boy, my gift from God. My husband James always wanted a large family . . . a great theatrical family, he used to say, like the Booths or the Jeffersons. My husband James loved children . . . as I loved him . . . as he loved me . . . as I loved him. . . .
[Her voice lowers as rage and bitterness swell up once more.]
I never should have had another child! My health was never the same after Eugene was born.
I suffered! The doctors gave me morphine for the pain. . . .
[Looks at her crippled hands.]
I still take my cure for the pain. No I never should have had another child. I didn’t want another child. I tried very hard not to have another child. . . . No, I never, never, never should have had another . . .
[Reverts to the morphine-induced trance and the plaintive voice of a lost child.]
I wonder what it would have been like had I never, never . . . Perhaps I could have been . . .
[She begins to play the imaginary piano as the flute plays the melody. ELLA sings the first stanza of “John O’Dreams” as “la, la, la, la, la, la—.” She sings it repeatedly while the flute continues to play the full melody. The noisy discord that results is a metaphor for the confusion that is taking place in ELLA’s mind. She rises from her imaginary piano and begins to dances in circles like a little girl, her arms extended, her face lifted skyward obviously in another world, another time and place. She makes her way over to the candles, snuffs out her own, the one of two that remains, and slowly twirls over to her chair. On the chair there sits a tremendously oversized rosary. She hangs the rosary over her left arm still singing “la, la, la, la, la—” still in discord with the flute accompaniment. With her back to the audience she stretches out her arms in the form of a cross symbolizing her own crucifixion. The rosary is still swaying from her arm as she dances slowly at first then faster and more frenetically; all the while, her voice growing louder and more shrilly. With her back to the audience, she symbolically injects her right arm with morphine in a slow and larger-than-life stylized movement. Her injected arm jerks upward and with that sudden movement, the noisy discord of her singing “la, la, la, la, la—” and the flute music stops abruptly. With arms stretched out in front of her, her face lifted to the heavens, she recites the Hail Mary.]
Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women . . .
[She laughs incredulously.]
Blessed art thou among women? Blessed art thou among women?
[She laughs hysterically and then collapses to her knees and begins weeping; she buries her head in the seat of her chair in a fit of uncontrollable sobbing.]
Oh, please, God take me home—please, please. . . . Oh, please take me home.
1. The role of Cora from Agnes Boulton’s (pen name: Elinor Rand) play The Guilty One, act 4.
2. Mrs. Miller, from Eugene O’Neill’s play Ah Wilderness!
3. “I remember a sweet strange girl. . . .” [Dion reminiscing about his mother in O’Neill’s The Great God Brown.] “It wasn’t the fog I minded, Cathleen . . . ,” says Mary, from O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night.