Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The anticipated Irons/Manville-led revival of O’Neill’s LONG DAY’S JOURNY INTO NIGHT is proficient but lacks pungency

• By drediman
• May 13, 2018
• No Comments

Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

This weekend saw the opening of Bristol Old Vic’s revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The production is the second major revival of an important O’Neill work this spring. On Broadway, Denzel Washington can currently be caught dazzling audiences in George C. Wolfe’s energizing production of The Iceman Cometh.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, one of the towering theatrical works of the twentieth century, might just be the ultimate “dysfunctional family” play. The lengthy piece – this production runs a meaty 3 hours, 20 minutes – concerns the Tyrone family, whose members are based on O’Neill’s own family. The play takes place over the course of a single, eventful day in the family’s seaside home in Connecticut, wherein one of the Tyrone boys is diagnosed with consumption and the matriarch falls back into her drug addiction. Uplifting stuff, indeed.

Sir Richard Eyre’s unfussy production features an enticing cast, headlined by Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville as James and Mary Tyrone. Although neither are giving benchmark performances – I feel both could have benefited from emotionally rawer performances, digging deeper into their characters’ bruised histories – both are completely proficient in the roles and do well to avoid the melodramatic excesses that typically accompany performances of O’Neill’s plays. Faring slightly better were the Tyrone sons, as played by Matthew Beard (Edmund) and Rory Keenan (James, Jr.). Both gave nuanced, biting, even slightly sarcastic performances that stayed with me.

Still, I would rank this production behind the stunning Dennehy/Redgrave revival and even the uneven, relatively recent Byrne/Lange production (both played Broadway). Mr. Eyre’s work is admirably clear-eyed but lacks the necessary pungency that those productions had. But if you haven’t seen this major piece of playwriting performed live before, by all means get thee to the BAM Harvey.

RECOMMENDED

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
Off-Broadway, Play
Bristol Old Vic at BAM Harvey
3 hours, 20 minutes (with one intermission)
Through May 27