References

Laughter and Power: Susan Glaspell’s Free Laughter and Eugene O’Neill’s Lazarus Laughed

Drew Eisenhauer

DOI : 10.54563/coupdetheatre.1185

p. 45-64

    Abstracts

    The present article demonstrates the influence of a lost Glaspell play, Free Laughter (1919), on O’Neill’s modernist epic Lazarus Laughed (1926), placing it within a tradition of such influences identified by Glaspell scholars and intertextual studies of the work of the two playwrights. The article concludes that Glaspell influenced O’Neill’s approach. In fact, by showing how O’Neill’s enormous Nietzchean-spiritual pageant was influenced by Glaspell’s compact political satire, we gain a better understanding of both authors’ portraits of tyrants and political oppression as the playwrights satirize the pettiness of despots and critique madness for power as a deforming mental illness.

    Le présent article démontre l’influence d’une pièce perdue de Glaspell, Free Laughter (1919), sur l’épopée moderniste de O’Neill, Lazarus Laughed (1926), en l’inscrivant dans une tradition d’influences de ce type identifiées par les spécialistes de Glaspell et les études intertextuelles de l’œuvre des deux dramaturges. L’article conclut que Glaspell a influencé l’approche d’O’Neill. En effet, en montrant comment le grandiloquant spectacle spirituel nietzchéen d’O’Neill a été influencé par la satire politique de Glaspell, nous comprenons mieux les portraits des tyrans et de l’oppression politique dressés par les deux auteurs, qui satirisent la mesquinerie des despotes et critiquent la folie du pouvoir comme une maladie mentale déformante.

    Index

    Mots-clés

    Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell, intertextualité, Free Laughter, Lazarus Laughed

    Keywords

    Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell, intertextuality, Free Laughter, Lazarus Laughed

    Excerpt

    During a six-year period between 1916-1922, the heyday of the Provincetown Players, a remarkable friendship and professional relationship developed between Eugene O’Neill and Susan Glaspell, which scholar Jeffery Kennedy characterizes in a recent overview as “the most consequential friendship” of the “two most consequential playwrights” in the company (101). According to the memoir of O’Neill’s second wife Agnes Boulton, O’Neill would visit Glaspell each afternoon in Provincetown after both writers’ morning writing routines were done, and the two would discuss all manner of topics (178). Boulton admitted to having to overcome her initial jealousy over the long hours O’Neill spent with Glaspell, and soon Boulton, O’Neill, Glaspell and Glaspell’s husband, George Cram Cook (“president”--essentially artistic director--of the Provincetown Players) saw each frequently at gatherings where Glaspell and O’Neill read aloud their new plays. O’Neill also mentioned Glaspell frequently in his dai...

    References

    Bibliographical reference

    Drew Eisenhauer, « Laughter and Power: Susan Glaspell’s Free Laughter and Eugene O’Neill’s Lazarus Laughed », Coup de théâtre, 39 | 2025, 45-64.

    Electronic reference

    Drew Eisenhauer, « Laughter and Power: Susan Glaspell’s Free Laughter and Eugene O’Neill’s Lazarus Laughed », Coup de théâtre [Online], 39 | 2025, Online since 01 décembre 2026, connection on 07 septembre 2026. DOI : 10.54563/coupdetheatre.1185

    Author

    Drew Eisenhauer

    Drew Eisenhauer co-edited (with Brenda Murphy) the collection Intertextuality in American Drama: Critical Essays on Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller and Other Playwrights (2011). His doctoral dissertation (2009) treated the self-reflexive plays by the Provincetown Players, and his publications explore the later work of American modernists associated with the group, including Susan Glaspell, Djuna Barnes, Eugene O’Neill, and Alfred Kreymborg. He received a Research in Paris Fellowship (2011) and an American Theatre and Drama Contingent Faculty Award (2022). He is now permanent instructor in English at the University of Le Havre, Normandy and teaches theatre at Paris College of Art.