New York, 1926: The premiere of Eugen O’Neill's play "The Great God Brown" in The Greenwich Village Theatre. The innovative, expressionistic use of masks (A face covered with the mask which is an accurate replica of the same face etc.) intensifies the sense of deep isolation among people. The play is a landmark in the history of American avant-garde theatre. In his essay "Memoranda on Masks" published in 1932, O’Neill says: "One's outer life passes in a solitude haunted by the masks of others; one's inner life passes in a solitude hounded by the masks of oneself." O’Neill uses two different words: "haunted" and "hounded", and I agree with him that our own masks are disturbing and harassing us much more then the masks of other people.