All God's Chillun Got Wings

by Eugene O'Neill, William-Alan Landes (Editor)

All God's Chillun Got Wings (1924) is an expressionist play by Eugene O'Neill about miscegenation inspired by the old Negro spiritual.[1] He began developing ideas for the play in 1922, emphasizing its authenticity in his notes: "Base play on his experience as I have seen it intimately."[2] O'Neill wrote the play in the fall of 1923 and revised the text only slightly for its 1924 publication.[3] Arguably one of his most controversial of plays, it starred Paul Robeson in the premiere,[4] in which he portrayed the black husband of an abusive white woman, who, resenting her husband's skin color, destroys his promising career as a lawyer

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Nobel Prize, Fiction, Drama, Classics, American

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

American playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill authored Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 among his works; he won the Nobel Prize of 1936 for literature, and people awarded him his fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night , produced in 1956.

He won his Nobel Prize "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism that Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg pioneered to Americans and first used true American vernacular in his speeches.

His plays involve characters, who, engaging in depraved behavior, inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness! , his only comedy: all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is perhaps O'Neill's most socially relevant play, dealing as it does with the taboo subject of the marriage of a white girl to a black man. At the time the play was published, it must have been revolutionary.

Ella and Jim are childhood sweethearts ("Painty Face" and "Jim Crow") - however, as they grow up, society draws them apart. Ella develops contempt for her childhood pal (who is trying to pass bar exams and failing repeatedly) for aspiring to be white and marry her. Ultimately, he gets her only when she has been loved and cheated by another - a sort of "damaged goods" - and even then, they have to move away from America to escape their respective race backgrounds. But that does not help in the long run, as the race lives inside oneself and there is no escape unless that is exorcised. They ultimately find companionship in a place where both are reduced to their racial stereotypes.

The playwright uses expressionistic techniques throughout, but they are more subdued than in The Hairy Ape and The Emperor Jones. The stage is suitably unrealistic; at some points, it even takes stylisation to the extremes (blacks and whites arranged on two sides symmetrically in the first part, Ella's and Jim's house getting progressively getting smaller and more claustrophobic in the second part) - even then, at times it falls into sentimentality, taking away from O'Neill's usual raw power.

[Harun Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

আকারে ছোট, কিন্তু গভীর অর্থপূর্ণ মনস্তাত্ত্বিক নাটক।ও'নীল কখনোই হতাশ করেন না।

[ِAhmed AboELkheir · Rating 4 out of 5]

على الرغم من الموضوع الذي تتناوله المسرحية وهي العلاقة ما بين السود و البيض، ولكن الكتابة رائعة، وبخاصة ما كان يفعله المسرحيون الأمريكان، من التوصيف الدقيق في مطلع كُل مشهد، توصيف دقيق لكل حركة و هذا التوصيف لهو جُزء أساسي و رئيسي في بنية النص .
مسرحية رائعة

[William Dunleavy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Schlock.

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A study of racism and interracial marriage. O’Neill’s stage notes create expressive symbols that are fine settings for his stylized psychology and plot.

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jesus. That just got tougher & tougher to read as it went on.

I found I could download a bunch of issues of The American Mercury on archive.org, so was scrolling through some of those & reading random bits & pieces. This was right at the start of one of the issues. I hadn't heard of the play, & though O'Neill's name rings a distant bell, I didn't know anything about him, either. But I figured I'd give it a shot.

This will contain spoilers, but... the play is very short, mostly predictable from even a single sentence synopsis, & the Personae Dramatis I read before it had already ruined pretty much everything for me. So there's that.

This was a hard play/book to rate. I give it the three stars - but it feels weird to say "I like it". It was also better than 'okay'. This is a personal preference, but I typically can't stand when books are written with the regional/cultural/whatever accent. So that first part was very grating. Otherwise, it had kind of sweet moments, & I could appreciate the complexity between how & why things change.

& then the second half just keeps accelerating toward more & more discomfort, between the portrayals of racism & mental illness & the incredible pain & struggle Jim is put through, by his wife, his family, & society. It was genuinely painful to read.

ELLA: I prayed and prayed. When you were away taking the examinations and I was alone with the nurse, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep but I was praying with all my might: O God, don't let Jim pass!
JIM: (with a sob) Don't, Honey, don't! For the good Lord's sake! You're hurting me!

I feel like this wasn't supposed to be the point or takeaway from it, though I could be wrong, but... what I was wondering through that second half is: How much of this is deep-seated racism - which Ella's behaviour as a child would seem to be evidence against - & how much is the obvious mental illness (presumably schizophrenia)? Either way, in the end, it was society that let them both down. It let Jim down due to keeping him from passing the bar despite all indications that he was technically superior to his classmates - along with the general racism that follows him & all the other blacks wherever they go & whatever they do, successful or not - & it let Ella down by making her question herself, making her question what seems to be a genuine love for Jim, tricking her into hating herself & him in ways she can't understand.

Ah. I don't know. It's a short play, but there's a fair bit to chew on. I looked on YouTube to see if there was any footage of a performance, but couldn't find anything. Would be interesting to see it live - O'Neill's stage direction is pretty particular.

Selah.

[J. D. Román · Rating 3 out of 5]

No digo que antes de esta lectura pensara que Eugene O'Neill era racista, pero no me esperaba encontrar aquí una historia a favor de las relaciones interraciales. Narra la historia de amor entre Jim (un hombre negro) y Ella (una mujer blanca) y cómo deben enfrentarse sus diferencias en el matrimonio a la vez que soportar a la sociedad norteamericana, que está en contra de su relación.

No me sorprende que esta obra teatral causara escándalo en 1924, puesto que nos presenta a una pareja interracial de una manera cotidiana, como cualquier otra pareja. Además, O'Neill aprovecha al personaje de Jim para reflexionar sobre el racismo tan presente en ese momento.

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Усі Божі діти мають крила» — історія дітей, які виросли у сусідніх районах: чорному та білому. Джим з дитинства знав, що любить Еллу, хоче з нею одружитися та зробить все можливе, щоб вона була щасливою, щоб бути її гідним. Елла у дитинстві спиралася на Джима, як на непохитну стіну та гадала, що любить. А потім вирісла.
Юджин О`Ніл отримав премію «За силу, чесність і глибокі емоції драматичних творів, що втілюють оригінальну концепцію трагедії», і трагедія йому вдається як нікому. У цій історії немає ані щасливого розвитку, ані щасливих персонажів. Тут взагалі немає щастя, але є багато упередженості та тупої впертості не дати злетіти сусіду просто тому що. Дуже сильна п’єса.
Бонус: Це та сама класна класика, яка не втрачає свіжості та актуальності, що саме по собі є бонусом, як на мене.

[عدنان العبار · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not among O'Neill's best, but it has some great passages. I read it in one go, lying down on the library carpet at Kuwait University's Shuwaikh campus. It was Summer at Ramadhan, and I was hiding around to smoke a cigarette and grab a sandwich and a salad with coffee and juice. And I borrowed this and took it with me as I was driving around the parking lot. These were fun times.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad, doesn't go far