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O'Neill in the Community:
Wendy
Cooper In 1937 the playwright Eugene O'Neill and his wife Carlotta discovered 158 acres in the Las Trampas Hills above Danville, California and decided to build there. They loved the site not only because of the beauty of the countryside Eugene described as "corduroy hills," but also because of its isolation. For the O'Neills it was an advantage to be away from the world, escaping from the publicity and notoriety the successful playwright had attracted after receiving the Nobel Prize for literature in the previous year. They lived in the home they named Tao House (from the Taoist philosophy meaning "the right way of life") from 1937 to 1944. The house Eugene called his "final harbor" was at once a home, a working place and a fortress, built high on the hill, where few visitors were welcomed. Carlotta protected Eugene from the outside world, and he was able to write his most famous plays isolated behind three doors that closed off his study from the rest of the house. For the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, Tao House and the National Park Service—which today have a unique partnership aimed at preserving and promoting O'Neill's home and his works—the isolation has been a disadvantage and a challenge. Tao House, now the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site, is located at the end of a private winding road behind the locked gates of a homeowners association. Public access is only possible by special vans. But the Foundation and National Park Service had to overcome this isolation. For the last three decades, artistic and educational programs and outreach to the community have been the mission of the Foundation. From the outset, according to the late Professor Travis Bogard, O'Neill scholar and founding artistic director of the Foundation, the objective for the programs at Tao House has been "to keep alive O'Neill's presence. This has involved making his name known and valued through the community, and to cause the general public to realize that the Tao House plays [. . .] rank among the greatest contributions to world theatre" (24). The story begins when the O'Neills first chose California as their home.
Saving Tao House "Welcome O'Neills," proclaimed a local newspaper in 1937 with the following lead: "Perhaps the most flattering tribute ever paid to the climate and scenic beauty of our own Contra Costa County comes with the announcement that Eugene O'Neill, Nobel Prize winner, and his beautiful wife, the former Carlotta Monterey, have chosen the San Ramon Valley as the site for their $40,000 home." It goes on to say, "Perhaps in this new atmosphere we may look forward to a different type of play from this gifted playwright." The author hoped that the San Ramon Valley of California would feature in his future plays—but the plays he wrote at Tao House were centered on his past. The Iceman Cometh, Hughie, A Touch of the Poet, More Stately Mansions, Long Day's Journey into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten —all written at Tao House—looked back either to events from history or to Eugene's early life and family. He lived in the valley, but in the isolation of the home on the hill, he turned to the past. Travis Bogard described O'Neill's Tao House:
By 1943, the isolation of the house became a worrying disadvantage to the O'Neills. Carlotta's diaries frequently included phrases like this one on 25 June 1943: "We must sell this place [. . .] and get where Gene can have proper medical treatment." Herbert Freeman, their trusted handyman and chauffeur had joined the Marines, Eugene's health was failing, and though they followed the war news and the rest of the world news daily, the isolation defeated the O'Neills and they sold their home in 1944. A week after leaving Tao House, O'Neill wrote to George Jean Nathan from San Francisco, "it had become a case of the place owning us, and it was crushing both of us [. . .]. We had loved it but we were getting to hate it because we were slaves to it——always living in daily uncertainty and insecurity" (550). When the O'Neills left Tao House, the new owners, Arthur and Charlotte Carlson, bought the property and extended its acreage to 1,018 to become a working ranch. They built the new barn—now the Foundation office and Research library—to house their ranch hands. Charlotte Carlson Gerdes lived at Tao House until 1965. A 1966 Contra Costa Times headline, "Development for O'Neill Property," caught the eye of Charlotte Morrison, a resident of Rossmoor, a retirement community in Walnut Creek, and member of the Las Trampas Wilderness Association. She was horrified to see that there was a multiple housing unit development planned for the Tao House property. She and Ann Cavanagh of the Concord Library League began programs to educate the community about O'Neill with the aim of saving O'Neill's home from destruction. The first of many bills to have the house and surrounding area preserved as a National Historic Site was introduced into Congress by Congressman Jerome R. Waldie in 1968. The Eugene O'Neill National Monument Association was officially organized on 9 July 1968 for the purpose of promoting interest in the preservation of the Eugene O'Neill home in Danville and, under the leadership of Thalia Brewer, volunteers succeeded in 1971 in having the house placed on the National Register of Historic Places and US Landmarks—prerequisites to having the house named a National Historic Site. In the meantime, the efforts of the real estate syndicate to buy the property had fallen through. The house reverted to Charlotte Carlson Gerdes. She sold the land to the East Bay Regional Parks District for $750,000 in March 1974—with an eighteen-month purchase option agreement on the house and the almost fourteen acres around it—to allow local groups more time for preservation efforts. Through this option, the house was available for purchase and in May 1974 the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, Tao House—a California nonprofit corporation—was formed for the purpose of acquiring Tao House and to develop the site into a center for performing arts and study. The task of raising the $235,000 purchase price was a daunting one for the twenty-three board members. Darlene Blair, the first special events chair, approached Jason Robards, Jr. for assistance. After he had been told by his wife Lois, "You must do Hughie for the Foundation, Jason!" he called Darlene to say he and Jack Dodson would perform the play as a benefit on 28 June 1975 at the Zellerbach auditorium in Berkeley. The success of the Berkeley performance encouraged Robards and Dodson to take Hughie to Los Angeles for a two-week season at the Westwood Playhouse. The proceeds enabled the Foundation to put a down payment on the house. Securing the title early in 1976 gave the Foundation access to the house, then in a state of disrepair.
Congressman George Miller and Senator Alan Cranston introduced bills to have Tao House recognized as a National Historic Site in 1975. On 28 April 1976 Foundation board members Darlene Blair and Lois Sizoo and East Bay Regional Park District representative Doreta Chaney went to Washington. They were joined by Jason Robards, who gave testimony with Darlene before a senate committee. The Federal Government had no money to buy the house, but was willing to accept it as a donation. In 1976, the Foundation did not have the necessary funds and was in danger of losing the option to buy Tao House. California Assemblyman Dan Boatwright introduced a bill in State Assembly that would appropriate $255,000 from Collier Park Preservation funds for the purchase of Tao House. AB4539 was signed into law in Sacramento, and George Miller's HR9126 passed in Congress. On 19 October 1976, President Gerald Ford signed SB 2398 into law and Tao House became a National Historic Site. Partnership between the Foundation and the National Park Service On 12 June 1980, ownership of Tao House was transferred from the state to the Federal Government and Ranger Craig Dorman of the National Park Service was assigned to the site. Since that time the Foundation and Park Service have worked together to preserve Tao House as a living memorial to Eugene O'Neill. The legislation both established the National Historic Site and set down parameters for both the National Park Service and the Foundation, with the Foundation's major responsibility being the presentation of artistic and educational programs. The National Park Service was authorized to "preserve, interpret, restore, program, adapt for public use and/or provide technical assistance for the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site," and to work cooperatively with the Foundation. The National Park Service began public tours in 1985, an event marked by a special dinner organized by the Foundation and hosted by Helen Hayes. Preserving the sense of isolation O'Neill sought—and following a 1994 court-mandated settlement with homeowners regarding private road access—National Park Service vans shuttle visitors between Danville and the park. This creates a very unusual National Park Service experience. Advanced reservations are required; the visit is free and includes a guided tour led by park staff and community volunteers interested in sharing O'Neill's story. Together, the Foundation and the National Park Service work to exercise the importance of place and share a significant part of American and theatrical history, through tours, artistic and educational programs and outreach to the community.
Play Production at Tao House Two significant theatrical events were presented at Tao House in the 1970s. The first play on site was The Hairy Ape, a production of Hanover College, Indiana, in 1976. In 1977 the Oregon Shakespeare Festival transported its production of A Moon for the Misbegotten from Ashland to Danville. Then, caught in a struggle with area homeowners over access, the Foundation was restricted from producing plays for audiences at the historic site for many years. It was almost twenty years before a full-scale theatrical production was again permitted for presentation to the public at the site where some of O'Neill's greatest plays were written. With the legal resolution of the road-access matter, a celebration of this important milestone was planned—a "raising of the curtain"—with a production of Faith Healer by Brian Friel in 1995. The historic barn, which had been on the property when the O'Neills brought the land, was used for the first time as a theater space and has housed most of the major productions ever since. The Foundation was finally able to move forward with one of its major goals, namely, bringing worthy theatrical events to the community. Nearly every fall since then, major full-length plays have graced the Tao House grounds. Inspired and encouraged by securing the rights to bring audiences up to Tao House, and by the success of Faith Healer, a spring theatrical series was initiated in 1996. The Playwrights' Theater, a joint effort of the Foundation and the National Park Service, has taken the form of staged readings directed and performed by professionals from the Bay Area's theater community. Named in honor of O'Neill's experimental theater in Greenwich Village, the Playwrights' Theater aimed to present innovative and rarely seen works. By 2006, twenty of O'Neill's earliest plays had been presented on the grounds of Tao House. Of these, six were full-length: Servitude, Diff'rent, The Emperor Jones, Welded, The Great God Brown and The Hairy Ape. Just as the Provincetown Players encouraged new playwrights, the Foundation's Playwrights' Theater has also presented new plays. E.G.O. The Passions of Eugene O'Neill, by Jo Morello, was produced in 2005. In 2006 eight short plays were presented by the Pear Avenue Theatre along with The Typographer's Dream, a new comedy by Adam Bock, presented by San Francisco's Encore Theatre. Awards for excellence The Tao House Award was created in 1989 to honor those who in some significant way have contributed memorably to the best aspects of the American drama. Jason Robards, Jr., the great O'Neill actor, was the first recipient of this prestigious award. A subsequent list of winners includes author and eminent scholar Travis Bogard; archivist and curator Donald Gallup—who developed the O'Neill collection at the Beinecke Library at Yale University; authors of the seminal O'Neill biography, Barbara and Arthur Gelb; and Theodore Mann, who has directed and produced more than sixteen O'Neill productions, including the first US production of Long Day's Journey into Night in 1956. Paul Libin, Broadway producer and collaborator with Mann, was honored with the award in 2003, followed, most recently, by author Stephen A. Black and actress Cherry Jones in 2006, and director Edward Hastings, founding member of the American Conservatory Theater, in 2007. Educational Programs and Community Outreach With performances established at Tao House, the Foundation inaugurated the Eugene O'Neill Festival at the beginning of the new century to foster awareness of the Historic Site and to bring O'Neill's presence into the community. The first Festival featured panel discussions in downtown Danville with authors, scholars, directors, and actors. A large audience saw a performance piece, The Triple Door, about the Tao House plays written for O'Neill's centenary year (1988) by Travis Bogard. In a lighter mood, the festival introduced the annual parade of dalmatians in honor of O'Neill's pet, Blemie. Scenes from Ah, Wilderness! and Take Me Along, the musical version of the play, entertained the public on Danville's Town Green while movies of O'Neill plays were screened in the adjacent library. The festival ended with an upbeat toe-tapping program, Sea Chanties, a program created by the National Park Service. Short tours to Tao House attracted many who did not know of the historic site before this first festival weekend. The second Festival was held over two weekends. All six performances of A Moon for the Misbegotten were sold out one week prior to opening night. The 2002 Festival featured Beyond the Horizon at Tao House, and downtown events included an original one-act play about Eugene O'Neill and his women, Always, Gene, showcasing the work of a young playwright, Beth Wynstra. Beth's research for her play included the perusal of many of O'Neill's letters in the Tao House library. Following the play, two well-known artistic directors of Bay Area theater companies participated in a discussion of directing and interpretation. Danville's Village Theatre was the venue for O'Neill: the Rhythms of his Soul, the 2003 cabaret production based on Travis Bogard's Eugene O'Neill Songbook. In 2004 New Girl in Town, the musical version of "Anna Christie," was also staged in downtown Danville. During these two festivals, the public had a special reason to visit the historic site—the Tao House Living History Open House. Eugene O'Neill, recreated by actor Kurt Gravenhorst, received guests in the study, introduced by Carlotta (ej Ndeto). O'Neill's handyman, Herbert Freeman, children Oona and Shane, and the cook and maid were also "at home at Tao House in the year 1941." After visiting in the house, guests were invited to the old barn to see scenes from O'Neill's plays by acting interns from the CenterREP acting internship program in Walnut Creek.
The Museum of the San Ramon Valley in Danville has a small permanent exhibit which features Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill in the valley, including a copy of the Nobel Prize certificate that was awarded to O'Neill in 1936. The Museum, in partnership with the Foundation and Park Service, often mounts special exhibits during the O'Neill Festivals that feature photographs, manuscripts, playbills, artifacts, Eugene and Carlotta's clothing, and miniature recreations of stage sets. They also produced a ten-page booklet, "San Ramon Valley in O'Neill's Time," for museum visitors. In recent festivals the Museum has introduced a walking tour through downtown Danville, "Secrets of the O'Neills in Danville." Getting to the National Historic Site requires special planning, so having exhibits at the museum is another way of literally bringing the playwright from his study at Tao House to the community. Student Days at Tao House, now in its sixteenth year, is an educational outreach program that brings students who have a genuine interest in writing, drama, art and photography to the evocative setting where Eugene O'Neill created his most powerful works. Since 1991 more than 2200 students have participated from over thirty schools in the East Bay area. Most students had not previously heard of, or read O'Neill. For many, this is the first time that they have been part of a community of artists. Students begin their experience at Tao House with an interactive tour led by National Park Service Interpretive Rangers designed to address the specific interests of the young artists. The tour helps students understand O'Neill's creative process and life story, especially in relation to his creation of great drama, and his impact on the cultural history of the United States. Then students take part in workshops led by professionals. Photographers and artists provide advice to the students. Writers engage students in writing situations designed to connect with O'Neill's life issues and experiences. Directors lead acting workshops and guide young actors through readings of scenes from O'Neill's plays. All the professional presenters weave information about O'Neill's creative process throughout the workshops, and all provide individual guidance to students who request it. The Eugene O'Neill Curriculum Project provides educational materials to high schools and colleges throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and nationwide. A committee of Bay Area high school teachers, led by board member Mary Camezon and National Park Service personnel, developed the curriculum for 11th and 12th grade English teachers. The curriculum, based on Long Day's Journey into Night, was written to satisfy state standards in English and language arts. Focusing particularly on "writing a response to literature" and "interpretive/compare-contrast essay writing" the curriculum was field tested in several Bay Area schools before final revision. With helpful comments from teachers and students, an extensive "writing process" was developed. The curriculum materials include biographical information, criticism, complete lesson plans to teach Long Day's Journey into Night, copies of the play, video productions, and suggested follow-up activities at Tao House. Since a visit to Tao House is an essential part of the curriculum, a video tour of Tao House has been produced for students throughout the nation who cannot attend. Visual artists, who work on site at Tao House in the spring each year, help bring the beauty and the message of the National Historic Site to the public through the creative works they produce. The Foundation and the National Park Service offer this program jointly. Two sessions, each of three days, are offered for artists to work in the atmosphere O'Neill found so inspiring. Their works—in painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography and pottery—which capture the beauty of the home and the surrounding Las Trampas open space and Mt. Diablo, are displayed at an art exhibit in downtown Danville, timed each year to coincide with the O'Neill Festival. Photography from the Student Days at Tao House program is at times also included in the exhibit, and books, photos and artifacts about the O'Neills help bring the playwright to the community. The video, Final Harbor, produced by board member Jann Rose at Tao House, and narrated by Travis Bogard and well-known Bay Area actor and director Barbara Oliver, has been shown during the exhibit. The libraries in Danville and San Ramon also help spread the word during the festival with special exhibits. Educating the community is an integral part of the Foundation's mission. Since the earliest days of the National Monument Association, lectures and seminars have provided information for the public. In the first years of the Foundation, Artistic Director Travis Bogard was a regular speaker at libraries, organizations, auxiliaries and classrooms, educating the community about the playwright and the Foundation's role in the challenge of saving Tao House. Since 1996 the Town of Danville, the Foundation and the NPS have presented an introductory seminar which Foundation members call O'Neill 101. Dan Cawthon, St. Mary's College professor and artistic director of the Foundation, has led the popular seminar that includes information about O'Neill, video clips and discussion. Professor Cawthon has also offered advanced in-depth seminars to coincide with Foundation productions. Archival Resources and Research Opportunities Providing information for education and research is another way the Foundation is bringing O'Neill into the community. The O'Neill Research Library holds the largest collection of O'Neill archival materials, books, manuscripts, letters, photography, video productions and O'Neill memorabilia on the West Coast. The library includes all aspects of the American Theater as well as Eugene O'Neill materials, and library director Diane Schinnerer accommodates requests for materials and information from all over the world. As soon as the Foundation was established, the board began acquiring books, papers, extensive collections and critical studies of O'Neill, first editions of O'Neill plays, and books inscribed by O'Neill. In May 1978, a grant of $1,000 was received from the East Bay Community Foundation to begin the Tao House library. Under the guidance of Professor Travis Bogard, books and donated collections were stored in a unit in Berkeley and negatives were secured in a safety deposit box.
The Foundation purchased part of photographer and collector Jere Hageman's O'Neill collection at a New York auction in 1999, including the playbills of All God's Chillun Got Wings 1924, and the original 1946 production of The Iceman Cometh. The board also purchased at auction O'Neill's Working Notes and Extracts from a Fragmentary Diary, on the writing of his trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra written in the spring of 1926. Nineteen ninety-one was proclaimed "the year of the library" with the object of raising $30,000. Foundations, service organizations and individuals donated funds to bring the collection to the O'Neill site. A self-contained climate controlled unit, of a type used by museums and libraries nationwide, was purchased and established in the new barn, and work on accessioning, organizing and cataloguing more than thirty-five boxes of materials began. In October 1995 the research library was officially opened at a special brunch where librarian Ruth Turner was also honored with the Open Gate Award (for board members giving outstanding service to the Foundation). The Bogard Reading Room—holding Professor Bogard's collection of drama, criticism, and O'Neill-specific works—opened in 1998. New floor-to-ceiling oak shelving was created for the collection. The reading room features a video player for the numerous tapes and a computer to house the enormous database. Much of the collection housed at Tao House will be available in the future at eugeneoneill.org. Dr. Tony Cooper has designed special programs for each area of the collection: videos, audios, phonograph records, letters, photographs, memorabilia, books, clippings and playbills.
An Artist-in-Residence Program has been part of the foundation's vision since the beginning with the intent "to provide emerging or established artists, scholars and critics of the performing or fine arts an opportunity to work in the solitude and quiet that was for Eugene O'Neill the creative atmosphere in which he produced his masterworks." A trial program with a visiting artist (rather than being "in residence") began in 2005 with Michael O'Neill, chairman of the drama department at Lafayette College, Easton, PA. He spent a month living off-site but worked on his research on-site, using the library and gaining inspiration from the isolation. Michaele also took his message to the community by leading a discussion, "Eugene O'Neill's Connection to the Theater of Ireland," at a Danville bookstore. He also directed three Playwrights' Theatre productions.
The Foundation reaches out to scholars throughout the world, and organizations have been invited to Tao House for seminars and discussions. The first meeting of the Eugene O'Neill Society, an international group of scholars, was held at Tao House in 1979. Tao House was the venue for a West Coast Directors' Conference in 1986—planning programs for the O'Neill Centennial in 1988. Jason Robards and José Quintero were among those attending. In 1994 the Foundation sponsored its first international conference, O'Neill on World Stages. The public was invited to attend the final scene from Long Day's Journey into Night presented in native-language performances by Russian and Chinese theater groups at St. Mary's College, Moraga. The Foundation and the Eugene O'Neill Society are currently in the planning stages for the 7th International Eugene O'Neill Conference, to be held in Danville in 2008. Moving into a Fourth Decade of Reaching Out to the Community After a thirty-year wait the town of Danville joined cities throughout the world honoring a literary giant. Almost since its inception, the Foundation dreamed of having a permanent monument honoring Eugene O'Neill in downtown Danville. On 28 September 2005, following a massive fundraising campaign by the Foundation, the $100,000 commemorative was unveiled in a small park opposite the Danville Library. Eight pedestals are installed along pathways in the park surmounted by enameled playbills that celebrate Eugene O'Neill and the plays he wrote while living at Tao House. Through photos of the O'Neills, photos of productions of his plays, O'Neill quotes and themes from his plays, Eugene O'Neill's life and works have truly been brought down from the hill to the town. The work, by noted Bay Area artist Michael Manwaring, is highlighted by a tall centerpiece consisting of bronze letters spelling a key passage from Long Day's Journey into Night: "Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. [. . .] For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!" Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill lived in isolation at Tao House where the playwright wrote works that changed the future of American drama. Today, the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, in partnership with National Park Service, strives to bring those works to the community. A glimpse into the way the O'Neills lived and worked is offered to the ever-growing numbers of visitors who tour the historic site. And the Foundation is spreading the word with programs for all ages from the very young, who watch the Blemie parade during the annual Festival in downtown Danville—and who then pressure their parents to go to Tao House to see the grave of O'Neill's beloved pet—to the youth who attend Student Days at Tao House, to the elderly former members of the Rossmoor Auxiliary who still study O'Neill's plays in their retirement village. Playwrights' Theatre and Festival performances open the hearts and minds of the audience to the words and insight of the great playwright, made more powerful by being performed in the historic barn. And those who have never seen an O'Neill play can still experience the beauty of the site, and the emotion of O'Neill's life and dramas, through visiting the local museum or art gallery to see the creative works of artists. Education is key to the mission of the Foundation and its library collection is available to the community, locally and electronically, via the growing database. Through performance, musical entertainment, seminars, and programs for young and old, the Foundation, in its fourth decade, in partnership with the National Park Service, will continue its efforts to bring the playwright from the isolation of his study at Tao House into the community.[1 NOTES 1. An earlier version of this article was delivered as a presentation by Wendy Cooper and Jann Rose at the Eugene O'Neill Society Conference in Tours, France in June 2003. Foundation Directors Kathy Abajian, Mary Camezon, Beverly Lane, Linda Studer, Diane Schinnerer and National Park Service Interpretive Ranger Margaret Styles conducted research for this article. WORKS CITED Bogard, Travis. "From the Silence of Tao House": Essays about Eugene & Carlotta O'Neill and the Tao House Plays. Danville, CA: The Eugene O'Neill Foundation, Tao House, 1993. O'Neill, Carlotta Monterey. Diaries, 1928-1943, 1954. Eugene O'Neill Papers. Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. O'Neill, Eugene. Selected Letters of Eugene O'Neill. Ed. Travis Bogard and Jackson R. Bryer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.(CONTENTS) |
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