The Theatre: The Night Crawlers

Down and out in Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie.”

Hilton Als

I’m always somewhat surprised to discover how many of the writers and thinkers I’ve admired over the years grew up reading Eugene O’Neill with a passion equal to my own. For years, I thought of O’Neill, who spoke so deeply to my adolescent self, as a kind of private pleasure. So I experienced something of a jolt when, in 2006, Joan Did ion told me, during an interview, that as a girl she’d read all O’Neill’s works in one summer, captivated by his theatricality. Mike Nichols, in a 2016 PBS “American Masters” program, described how much O’Neill meant to him, too. What impressed me, as I watched Did ion’s and Nichols’s eyes light up at the thought of those maddening sexist, racist, restless, complicated, and important dramas, was how little…

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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 7, 2016

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