Chapter 3 - . . . Journey . . . The Arrival of Iceman

Summary

Act 2, scene 2 follows luncheon by half an hour. No one has enjoyed this fare. No one can properly digest what has happened, and the only recourse is to say farewell. The afternoon will also not go well; they must each encounter their lonely existence in spaces where life and death, memory and expecta¬tion collide.

Despite what Carlotta wrote in her diary, which was often self-effacing, she did have an outstanding talent, and it was for home building, also home management. Her specific achievement at Tao House was the shaping of home around Eugene O’Neill's need for home in a way that conformed with her own. Some strange fate brought them together, because her need for home—and him—reacted with his need for home—and her—in such a way that many plays could be written, most extraordinarily Long Day's Journey. As she frequently lamented in later years, she created home after home for their marriage. But Tao House was her masterpiece, just as Long Day's Journey was his.The two acts of creation are interwoven to the degree that they can be seen as a co-creation.

As I argued in my book on O’Neill's previous marriage, to Agnes Boulton, Gene clung to the romantic image of the solitary author who single-handedly struggles to bring forth pure art. The implication for Agnes was that she should not be there, even as he always needed her to be there. In a sense, she had to vanish and enfold him. The end that justified such a contortion of marriage was, for Gene anyway, the creation of a great work of art. The clustered interests of the marketplace—publishers, producers, critics, and audiences—should not get in the way of the poet's genius. Due respect has been given to Gene's resistance to the usual commercial lures of the day and his refusal to treat his art with anything less than dignity. He did not cater to the market, and he stood by the integrity of his work. But a great author who goes unpublished is an anomaly, and a playwright cannot avoid dealing with the commerce of the book trade and theaters and the economic realities of people trying to make a living from their art—actors, directors, designers, and producers. The paying audience drives that whole industry.