Ah, Wilderness

Ah, Wilderness!" is the only comedy that Eugene O'Neill wrote and as such stands out as quite different from most of his work. It is the story of Richard Miller, a 17 year-old Swinburne- and Wilde-reading intellectual pretty obviously based on O'Neill's memory of himself as an adolescent. Richard is in love with Muriel McComber, a neighbor girl, but Muriel's father objects to the relationship and, after a heated exchange between Mr. McComber and Richard's father Nat, Nat half-heartedly tells Richard to stay away from Muriel, and Richard receives a note from Muriel to the effect that the relationship is over. Despondent, Richard lets his older brother's friend talk him into going to a bar to meet a girl, where Richard gets drunk and engages in some innocent flirtation with her, but does not allow the girl (who unsurprisingly is a prostitute) to take him upstairs. Meanwhile, Richard's parents are worried sick about him and are rather displeased when he comes home drunk, but upon realizing that he's learned his lesson, they let him off fairly easily the next day, and everything, including Richard's relationship with Muriel, works out well in the end.