Eugene O'Neill began writing for the stage when American theatre was dominated by vaudeville and romantic melodrama. Influenced by Strindberg, Ibsen, and other European playwrights, he vowed to create a theatre in America, stripped of false sentimentality, that would explore the deepest stirrings of the human spirit. He wrote over fifty plays, experimented with new dramatic techniques, and tackled such issues as interracial marriage, the equality of the sexes, the power of the unconscious mind, and the hold of materialism on the American soul. In each of his plays, he sought to reveal the mysterious forces behind life that shape human destiny. His final plays, written in Danville, portrayed with faithful realism the haunting figures of his father, mother, and brother who loom in the background of almost all his work, and these autobiographical plays are considered his greatest masterpieces. In a career spanning three decades, he changed the American theatre forever.