Produced by Martin Agren and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net The Emperor Jones _The Straw_, and '_Diff'rent_ Three Plays by Eugene O'Neill Jonathan Cape Thirty Bedford Square, London FIRST PUBLISHED 1922 REPRINTED IN 1925 REPRINTED IN 1931 REPRINTED IN 1935 REPRINTED IN 1953 REPRINTED IN 1955 REPRINTED IN 1958 REPRINTED IN 1965 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD. FROME AND LONDON BOUND BY A. W. BAIN AND CO. LTD. Characters Bill Carmody Mary } Nora } _his children_ Tom } Billy } Doctor Gaynor Fred Nicholls Eileen Carmody, _Bill's eldest child_ Stephen Murray Miss Howard, _a nurse in training_ Miss Gilpin, _superintendent of the Infirmary_ Doctor Stanton, _of the Hill Farm Sanatorium_ Doctor Simms, _his assistant_ Mr. Sloan Peters, _a patient_ Mrs. Turner, _matron of the Sanatorium_ Miss Bailey } Mrs. Abner } _Patients_ Flynn } Other Patients of the Sanatorium Mrs. Brennan (_The characters are named in the order in which they appear_) Act One Scene One: The Kitchen of the Carmody Home--Evening. Scene Two: The Reception Room of the Infirmary, Hill Farm Sanatorium--An Evening a Week Later. Act Two Scene One: Assembly Room of the Main Building at the Sanatorium--A Morning Four Months Later. Scene Two: A Crossroads Near the Sanatorium--Midnight of the Same Day. Act Three An Isolation Room and Porch at the Sanatorium--An Afternoon Four Months Later. TIME--1910 The Straw Act One Act One: Scene One _The kitchen of the Carmody home on the outskirts of a manufacturing town in Connecticut. On the left, forward, the sink. Farther back, two windows looking out on the yard. In the left corner, rear, the icebox. Immediately to the right of it, in the rear wall, a window opening on the side porch. To the right of this, a china cupboard, and a door leading into the hall where the main front entrance to the house and the stairs to the floor above are situated. On the right, to the rear, a door opening on to the dining room. Further forward, the kitchen range with scuttle, wood box, etc. In the centre of the room, a table with a red and white cloth. Four cane-bottomed chairs are pushed under the table. In front of the stove, two battered wicker rocking chairs. The floor is partly covered by linoleum strips. The walls are papered a light cheerful colour. Several old framed picture-supplement prints hang from nails. Everything has a clean, neatly-kept appearance. The supper dishes are piled in the sink ready for washing. A saucepan of water simmers on the stove._ _It is about eight o'clock in the evening of a bitter cold day in late February of the year 1912._