South Valley is book-ended by the homes of two Noble
Prize-winning authors. You have, of course, the John Steinbeck
House in Salinas. And then you have Eugene O’Neill’s Tao House in
Danville, about a 45-minute drive northeast of us.
South Valley is book-ended by the homes of two Noble Prize-winning authors. You have, of course, the John Steinbeck House in Salinas. And then you have Eugene O’Neill’s Tao House in Danville, about a 45-minute drive northeast of us.
Last spring I journeyed to Tao House on a fieldtrip for a History of Theatre class taught at Gavilan Community College. There I learned much about the man some literary scholars consider “America’s greatest playwright.”
Tao House is a national historic site set in the hills of Danville overlooking the San Ramon Valley. Toward the end of his life, O’Neill lived there from late 1937 to early 1944. He wrote his last five great plays there including “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” and “The Iceman Cometh.”
At the Danville Park and Ride along Interstate 680, I rode in the National Park Service shuttle with about a dozen members of “The Traveling Bookies,” a group of very nice literary-minded ladies. They had read O’Neill’s play “A Moon for the Misbegotten” and the visit was a pilgrimmage for them also.
The two-mile ride up the hill passed through beautiful suburbs shaded by a dense spread of trees. At the top, we found Tao House was a mansion – albeit a modest one – set on 13 acres of rustic ranchland.
Docent Ken Kantor gave us a two-hour tour of the playwright’s beloved home, starting with the somber front gate where Chinese characters roughly translate as “the way to the villa.” The house was heavily influenced by O’Neill’s interest in Taoism, and that Asian philosophy greatly influences the layout of the garden with its crooked paths under flowering trees.
At the home’s entrance, Kantor noted O’Neill and his third wife Carlotta Monterey dearly loved their privacy. If nosey reporters or neighbors tried approaching the door, the couple would have their beefy man-servant greet them with a double-barreled shotgun.
The tour inside the home itself revealed more about Carlotta than O’Neill. She had worked as a romantic-comedy star on Broadway when O’Neill first met her. The two had an extra-marital affair for several years before O’Neill divorced his second wife and married the dazzling actress.
Apparently, Carlotta was a very possessive woman. Our tour guide noted she watched with jealous eyes whenever O’Neill came near other women – especially one afternoon when Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman paid a visit to Tao House.
O’Neill’s beautiful home has various whimsical touches that give an idea of his humanity. One is “Rosie,” a Wurlitzer player piano the playwright bought from a New Orleans bordello. A special room was built for “Rosie” in Tao House. Docent Kantor dropped a nickel in the machine’s slot and it kicked out a rollicking rag-time tune. Rosie gave the often depressed O’Neill much joy, the tour guide said.
Of personal interest for me was the upstairs home office where O’Neill wrote. It’s a playwright’s paradise. You have to pass through a narrow walk-in closet to get to it. When working, O’Neill made a habit of locking all three doors leading into the room to keep out distractions – especially the tempestuous Carlotta.
His office had two desks facing away from each other, allowing O’Neill to jump between them as he wrote several plays at the same time. He favored the desk with the window facing east. It gave him an inspiring view of Mt. Diablo on the other side of the valley. Gazing outside, I saw far-away traffic shooting along Interstate 680 and homes dotting Danville’s hills. O’Neill would have seen fruit orchards and ranch land.
Also interesting for me on the Tao House tour was the huge number of books O’Neill owned. During his time, the home’s walls were covered with a whopping 8,000 volumes. One day, Carlotta grew tired of the overloaded shelves and complained to O’Neill she felt as if they lived in a library. Most of the books soon went into storage.
But a representative few now exhibited in the house hint at O’Neill’s reading interests. He seemed keen on mysteries. One shelf near his bed exhibits complete sets of detective stories including Sherlock Holmes and Dashiell Hammet’s novels.
Another bookshelf showed he also loved reading about the sea. In his early years, O’Neill served as a Merchant Marine, and many of his early plays reflect this love of the sailor’s life.
It fascinated me to learn that in Tao House, the esteemed playwright never displayed his awards such as his Noble Prize for Literature or his various Pulitzer Prizes (he won four, including one posthumously for “Long Day’s Journey”). The most significant memorabilia he displayed in his office were his discharge papers from the Merchant Marines.
Eugene O’Neill’s plays tend to be depressing psychological dramas. I remember trudging through “Long Day’s Journey” back in my college years. The play definitely needs Prozac. But his only comedy “Ah, Wilderness” made audiences laugh and proved immensely successful on Broadway.
The playwright had several children. Two sons committed suicide, but his daughter Oona enjoyed a relatively happy life. She told O’Neill she wanted to be an actress, which upset him. He didn’t think much of acting as a career. So the teenage Oona ran off to marry the elderly Charlie Chaplin and had a happy marriage with the famous film comedian.
O’Neill suffered from sickness almost all his life. In his youth, he’d worked in an Honduras gold mine where malaria damaged his lungs. He also suffered from countless health and mental problems including chronic depression and alcoholism. His declining health was the reason he and Carlotta built Tao House. They believed the Bay Area’s mild climate would help him heal.
Outside Tao House’s gift shop, as our tour group walked through the garden to our waiting shuttle, we passed a commemorative plaque inscribed with words from one of O’Neill’s play: “The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.” To me, those lines said that a writer of Eugene O’Neill’s caliber is never really lost in history. As long as his plays get produced and read, he’ll live on.
