Eugene O'Neill: Anti-Father

Did you know there is a free shuttle that will pick you up in front of the old train museum in downtown Danville and take you on a free tour of Danville’s historic Eugene O’Neill house?

Your kids might enjoy the tour, though I think it’s more of an adult curiosity.

Eugene O’Neill is one of the greatest playwrights in American history. Perhaps most famous for Long Days Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh, he won three Pulitzer Prizes and a Nobel Prize.

The shuttle takes you from downtown Danville to a place about 15 minutes away, up a private, gated road.

The Eugene O’Neill house sits by itself on a perch of great acreage. When you get off the shuttle bus, you don’t feel like you’re in Danville anymore. You feel like you’ve landed on Little House on the Prairie.

You follow a Zen path the Parks & Recreation people have taken care to maintain as it was when O'Neill lived there with his third wife, Carlotta.

Upon entering the house, you are greeted by photos of O'Neill looking rather stern and unfriendly, which is exactly how he seemed to be.

Though tour guides at the house say there are certainly happy photos of him, as well, they also shared he had a reputation for heavy drinking and depression.

The home itself, we learned was built primarily as an escape. Every writer’s dream, to have a retreat, a place of quiet that would allow you the freedom to create, undisturbed.

But O'Neill took that concept to the extreme. He picked a good hideaway. His house was tucked away in the rural hills of Danville in the 1930s when Danville truly was little more than a blip on a map.

The house sits on a plot of acreage so remote that it would assure no neighbors would be knocking on his door to borrow a cup of sugar.

It wasn’t enough that he claimed a wing of the home to himself.  Carlotta told his servants, “He is not to be disturbed ever, not even if the house is on fire.”

O'Neill was such an isolationist that even his own children weren’t invited to the house, except on rare occasion. That was the jaw-dropping part of the tour.

We learned O'Neill and Carlotta wanted nothing to do with his three children. Shunned by their famous father, two of his sons, Eugene, Jr. and Shane were also plagued by depression. They ended up committing suicide.

Of the children, only his daughter, Oona, seemed to enjoy a happy life. At age 18, she married Charlie Chaplin, much to Eugene’s displeasure (Chaplin was 54 at the time). But even Oona became an alcoholic in later life.

The walls inside his home were specially crafted with nooks that once held about 5,000 of O'Neill’s books.

Books, he loved. And his dog, apparently, he also loved. He wrote a long, eloquent last will and testament for his dog, Blemie.

How could a man so love his dog but not his own children?

I dream of becoming a published novelist one day. To win a Pulitzer, that exceeds even my wildest dreams. I can appreciate his passion for writing and dedication to his craft but at what cost?

I wouldn’t trade any of his magnificent prizes for my children.

I suspect his Pulitzers didn’t come visit him on his deathbed. His Nobel Prize never gave him a hug or called him Daddy.

Of course, the prizes never interrupted him, either. I guess for O'Neill, that was the goal: a life uninterrupted.

But for me, a life uninterrupted is a life unlived.

The tour of Eugene O’Neill’s house is a Long Day’s Journey into greatness… and profound sadness.

If you’ve ever questioned how good a parent you are, take the tour. Chances are, you’ll come away feeling like the greatest parent in the world.

They don’t give Pulitzers or Nobel Prizes for that. But they should.