Marco Millions And O'Neill's “Two Part Two —Play" Form

Abstract

IN THE CHRONOLOGY OF HIS PLAYS supplied for Richard Skinner's Eugene O'Neill: A Poets Quest (New York, 1935), O'Neill records that in the summer of 1924, he finished Marco Millions "in its original two part two-play form, each play short full length." He adds that in the winter of 1925, he completed the "Final draft of 'Marco Millions,' condensed into one play." And in a letter published in Barrett Clark's Eugene O'Neill: The Man and His Plays (New York, 1947), O'Neill explained that as he revised the play, he chose to "rewrite and condense the two nights into one long night." Evidently, then, Marco Millions had at first been two plays, or one play in two parts, intended for production on successive evenings. But the published editions of the play consist of a Prologue and eleven scenes divided into a three-act structure and provide no clarification of what O'Neill could have meant by "two part two-play" form or "condensed into one play." It is now possible to explain O'Neill's intentions. Available for such an inquiry are O'Neill's original drafts of the play and the Theatre Guild's prompt copy from its 1928 production of Marco Millions.2