Long Day's Journey Into Night (Jonathan Cape paperback, 46) [Paperback]

Although O'Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, he would remain silent for some ten years, leaving most to believe he had written himself out, was burned out, that his career was over. But in spite of tremendous personal issues, O'Neill continued to write in private, and during this period he would generate a string of powerful plays, many of which would not be released for performance until after his death in 1953. The legendary Long Day's Journey Into Night, closely based on his own family life, was written in the early 1940s. It was first performed in 1956--some three years after his death--at which time it too won the Pulitzer Prize.

The play presents the story of the Tyrone family. James Tyrone is a famous stage actor, now aging; his wife Mary is a delicately beautiful but sadly worn woman named Mary. Their two sons are studies in contrast: Jamie, in his late 30s, is wild--fond of wine, women, and song--and seen as a bad influence on younger Edmund, who is physically frail but intellectually sharp. The action takes place at their summer home, and begins in the morning; the family seems happy enough--but clearly there is something we do not know, something working under the surface that gives an unnatural quality to their interaction.

Over the four acts and next four hours the morning passes into afternoon, the afternoon into night. And we will learn the truth: the history of money grubbing, the alcoholism, the drugs, the personal failures, the seemingly endless cycle of self-defeating, self-destructive behavior in which the four are locked beyond hope of redemption. And as it progresses the play gathers itself into an almost unendurable scream of agony, a scream of truly cosmic proportions.

Why, you might ask, would someone wish to read--much less sit through--such a play? A work so painful that it often becomes difficult to continue reading or to look at the stage? I myself asked this question when I first encountered it. Over the years I have done quite a bit of theatre. In the early 1980s I played the role of Edmund; in the late 1990s I played the role of Jamie. On both occasions I found the play horrifically painful to perform. On both occasions I wondered if such a painful play could find an audience in small-town America. On both occasions Long Day's Journey Into Night sold out and not a person left the theatre before each performance ended.

Because, I think, the play taps into something that is universal but which is extremely difficult to express in simple terms. As O'Neill might say himself, it has a touch of the poet--but of a failed poet. Somehow, in some unique way, it speaks to the self-knowledge we all have of the hidden dreams that never came true, the little accommodations, the big and small failures that have stung us and changed us and over time made us--for better or worse--the beings that we are. It has humanity. It makes us see our own humanity. It makes us acknowledge the humanity of those around us.

Many, myself among them, regard this as O'Neill's finest play--and considering the great power that many of his works have, that is saying a great deal. It is also in some respects one of his most accessible plays: shorn of the experimentalism to which O'Neill was frequently drawn and beautifully simple, beautifully direct, even those unaccustomed to reading playscripts will find it a rapid and powerful read. For this reason it is really the only O'Neill script I recommend to casual readers. And I recommend it very, very strongly indeed. A great drama, both on the page and on the stage.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Long Day's Journey Into Night is a complete theatrical experience, satisfying on every level. Recreating his own family and its interactions, O'Neill's emotional connection with the characters is obvious in the roundness of their characterizations: there are no villains or heroes here. James Tyrone, modeled on his father, is an actor who found the "perfect play," resulting in years of travel performing the same role. Permanently typecast and by now bored, James has earned a substantial salary but is considered a tightwad, unable to escape his memories of poverty. Mary Tyrone, his wife, to whom he is devoted, traveled with him when he performed, often leaving the children with family members. When her youngest child died in her absence, she blamed everyone for this accident. Edmund, modeled on O'Neill himself, was born after this, but Mary never recovered, and when an incompetent doctor prescribed drugs, she became blissfully addicted.

The two sons, Jamie and Edmund, observe the interactions of their parents, their father losing himself in alcohol, their mother constantly re-addicting herself so she can live in a world without hurt, and they interact both with both parents and with each other. Jamie, considerably older than Edmund, regards himself as Edmund's protector, both from the outside world and from the sometimes hurtful relationships both have with their parents, who regard Jamie as a failure because of his drinking, and Edmund as a baby. Edmund, however, has traveled the world before returning home recently with a "bad summer cold," obviously the early stages of tuberculosis, a reality his mother refuses to recognize. As he awaits an official diagnosis from a cut-rate doctor, Edmund tries to channel his feelings and his fears into the poems he writes.

Though many gifted dramatists can make one or two characters come alive in a play, O'Neill does it here for all four characters, each of whom rings completely true. Their actions and conflicts arise from within, and the viewer becomes completely caught up in the dialogue and events on stage because they are so natural, so life-like. Though the play is about three and a half hours long, these are hours that fly by, the intensity of the family's internal conflicts totally involving, as the love underlying these conflicts and the hidden resentments which ignite them emerge at odd moments and create poignant scenes. Ironic humor, much more obvious in the hands of outstanding stage actors than in the written script, provides relief from the powerful tensions and keeps the play from ever appearing sentimental or melodramatic. The most moving theatrical experience I have ever had, this play is breathtaking, heart-rending, and utterly overwhelming. Mary Whipple