Shakespeare and European Heroics

Many actors played the title role in The Count of Monte Cristo, among them E. L. Davenport and Alessandro Salvini, but today, most people know only of James O'Neill as Edmond Dantes. Trapped in the success he had achieved in this role, O'Neill had difficulty establishing himself in other roles. He gave more than 6,000 performances over three decades, touring in Monte Cristo in virtually every city and town in the United States and Canada, crossing and recrossing the North American continent. In an October 1900 article, New York Tribune critic William Winter described him as a "thorough actor, powerful when power is required, very versatile, and in his demeanor, gesture, vocalism, and spirit, honest and sincere," and creating and sustaining "romantic illusion." O'Neill's son, playwright Eugene O'Neill, considered the play "just another old melodrama, better than most of them, but with little to explain how it could ever have had such an astonishing appeal for the American public." Thanks to Eugene O'Neill's anger at his actor father, vividly revealed in his play Long Day's Journey into Night, The Count of Monte Cristo is the most famous touring drama of its period.