Eugene O'Neill's Lost Play EXORCISM Opens at Art House in Provincetown Tonight
Written by O'Neill in 1919 while living in Provincetown and performed at the Provincetown Playhouse in 1920, this autobiographical one-act about O'Neill's own attempted suicide was destroyed by the playwright following its premiere in New York. He wrote 'the sooner all memory of it dies the better pleased I'll be.' According to O'Neill all copies of the script were accounted for, but his then wife Agnes Boulton held onto one copy. She later secretly gifted the copy to screenwriter and producer Philip Yordan, with a cryptic message 'something you said you'd like to have' written on the label. Yordan's ex-wife while sorting through her late husband's archive discovered this manuscript some ninety years later. It is with great privilege that we now resurrect this 'lost' play to have its Provincetown premiere. One performance only: tonight, June 8th at 7.30pm at the Art House, 214 Commercial Street, Provincetown, Mass.