Set in New England just after the end of the Civil War, Mourning Becomes Electra is O'Neill's three part reworking of themes from Greek tragedy. This adaptation of Aeschylus' Oresteia by one of America's greatest playwrights is a landmark in the history of theatre.

Josie, a woman with a quick tongue and a ruined reputation, lives in a dilapidated farmhouse with her conniving father. Together they're a formidable force as they scrape together a livelihood. But Josie is exposed through her love of her father's drinking buddy, an actor whose dreams were washed away by alcohol.

The first play tells of an animalistic stoker, who, spurned by a society woman, breaks out of the engine room and goes in search of himself in the real world. The second play deals with a mixed marriage, in which the jealous white wife destroys her black husband's chances of a career.

Eugene O'Neill (1888 -1953) was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. He was the first American to use the technique of realism in his plays. His characters were often on the outskirts of society and spoke in American dialects. His characters were unsavory people who often performed inappropriate acts yet still hoped for more in life. They ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), The First Man (1922), and The Hairy Ape (1922). The Straw was produced in 1919. Anna Christie is a symbolic play about...

Eugene O'Neill's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning play about love and forgiveness charts one woman's longing to forget the dark secrets of her past and hope for salvation.