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Long Day's Journey, up close and personal
Simpatico's "Long Day's Journey Into Night' (2nd review)
Steve Cohen
Long Day's Journey Into Night is rarely performed as it has been this March by the Simpatico Theatre Project on the Adrienne's tiny Second Stage.
This O'Neill classic is usually cast with celebrities and, consequently, is presented at large theaters that can generate large income from ticket sales. To tell the truth, when I recently wrote that Philadelphia hasn't seen enough O'Neill, I was thinking of the major companies. None of them has done O'Neill lately.
But I'm glad to see this production. Simpatico reminds us that Long Day's Journey is an intimate play with a small cast, set in one living room. Very appropriate, then, to see it close up on a small stage.
Squelching the Irish
Director Carol Laratonda has done a good job of pacing, but I'm more critical of the performances than is Jim Rutter. And although O'Neill's script frequently refers to the Irish characteristics of his family, Laratonda errs in trying to make the play universal and virtually eschewing Irish-American accents.
Laratonda has cast the production with local actors who look right for their parts even if they don't always sound right. In addition to the lack of accents, Steve Gleich as the father, James Tyrone, doesn't really seem to be the experienced Shakespearian actor he is supposed to be. He seems too ordinary a person and, on the plus side, not nearly so heartless as Mary thinks he is.
Peggy Smith looks great as the fading but still lovely Mary Tyrone, but her voice is so soft that she often retreats into the background. The brothers are spectacularly interpreted by Allen Radway as the elder 33-year-old wastrel and Kevin Meehan as the sickly younger brother who was based on O'Neill himself. The interplay between the brothers was convincing and heart-wrenching, and each of them delivered their poetic speeches of introspection beautifully.
Mary's addiction: My minority view
Long Day's Journey Into Night, you will recall, is the play that O'Neill wrote about his own family with instructions that it not be published until 25 years after his death. (With his widow's permission, it was published and performed in 1956, only three years after his death.) Using his own experiences, Journey portrays aging parents and their sons and their interaction as they face (or avoid) their serious problems, which include drug and alcohol abuse.
Addiction is just the tip of O'Neill's iceberg, though: Long Day's Journey is really about resentments, rivalries and recriminations. In my admittedly minority opinion, the mother's drug addiction is a McGuffin (that old Hitchcock gimmick)"“ an excuse to launch the action more than an in-depth revelation of her persona. O'Neill is sketchy in describing the progress of his mother's descent into addiction, for reasons that don't strike me as sufficiently convincing. Telling us about the coldness of her husband— who nevertheless has always adored her— and the death of a child don't adequately show how Mary became a junkie.
The depiction of her dependence was surely shocking in 1912, when Long Day's Journey takes place, and even when the play was first produced. But so many subsequent plays, movies and real public figures have gone public with their addictions that by now Mary's situation seems almost trite. Yet her addiction is the trigger— the McGuffin— that brings out the feelings of the family members that's the real heart and soul of the play.
Is it drama, or biography?
I believe O'Neill considered Long Day's Journey Into Night more autobiography than a theater script. One piece of evidence is the minutely detailed descriptions of every character, four or five paragraphs long. Thus I can excuse some inconsistencies in plot as O'Neill's subjective glimpses into his family. Add to that the retrograde attitudes about addiction: "There's no cure...they never come back...there's no help for it...there's no hope."
That's why I favor playing Long Day's Journey thoroughly in period, rather than trying to make the characters seem more like us. Their universality comes through regardless.
To read another review by Jim Rutter, click here.
This O'Neill classic is usually cast with celebrities and, consequently, is presented at large theaters that can generate large income from ticket sales. To tell the truth, when I recently wrote that Philadelphia hasn't seen enough O'Neill, I was thinking of the major companies. None of them has done O'Neill lately.
But I'm glad to see this production. Simpatico reminds us that Long Day's Journey is an intimate play with a small cast, set in one living room. Very appropriate, then, to see it close up on a small stage.
Squelching the Irish
Director Carol Laratonda has done a good job of pacing, but I'm more critical of the performances than is Jim Rutter. And although O'Neill's script frequently refers to the Irish characteristics of his family, Laratonda errs in trying to make the play universal and virtually eschewing Irish-American accents.
Laratonda has cast the production with local actors who look right for their parts even if they don't always sound right. In addition to the lack of accents, Steve Gleich as the father, James Tyrone, doesn't really seem to be the experienced Shakespearian actor he is supposed to be. He seems too ordinary a person and, on the plus side, not nearly so heartless as Mary thinks he is.
Peggy Smith looks great as the fading but still lovely Mary Tyrone, but her voice is so soft that she often retreats into the background. The brothers are spectacularly interpreted by Allen Radway as the elder 33-year-old wastrel and Kevin Meehan as the sickly younger brother who was based on O'Neill himself. The interplay between the brothers was convincing and heart-wrenching, and each of them delivered their poetic speeches of introspection beautifully.
Mary's addiction: My minority view
Long Day's Journey Into Night, you will recall, is the play that O'Neill wrote about his own family with instructions that it not be published until 25 years after his death. (With his widow's permission, it was published and performed in 1956, only three years after his death.) Using his own experiences, Journey portrays aging parents and their sons and their interaction as they face (or avoid) their serious problems, which include drug and alcohol abuse.
Addiction is just the tip of O'Neill's iceberg, though: Long Day's Journey is really about resentments, rivalries and recriminations. In my admittedly minority opinion, the mother's drug addiction is a McGuffin (that old Hitchcock gimmick)"“ an excuse to launch the action more than an in-depth revelation of her persona. O'Neill is sketchy in describing the progress of his mother's descent into addiction, for reasons that don't strike me as sufficiently convincing. Telling us about the coldness of her husband— who nevertheless has always adored her— and the death of a child don't adequately show how Mary became a junkie.
The depiction of her dependence was surely shocking in 1912, when Long Day's Journey takes place, and even when the play was first produced. But so many subsequent plays, movies and real public figures have gone public with their addictions that by now Mary's situation seems almost trite. Yet her addiction is the trigger— the McGuffin— that brings out the feelings of the family members that's the real heart and soul of the play.
Is it drama, or biography?
I believe O'Neill considered Long Day's Journey Into Night more autobiography than a theater script. One piece of evidence is the minutely detailed descriptions of every character, four or five paragraphs long. Thus I can excuse some inconsistencies in plot as O'Neill's subjective glimpses into his family. Add to that the retrograde attitudes about addiction: "There's no cure...they never come back...there's no help for it...there's no hope."
That's why I favor playing Long Day's Journey thoroughly in period, rather than trying to make the characters seem more like us. Their universality comes through regardless.
To read another review by Jim Rutter, click here.
What, When, Where
Long Day’s Journey Into Night. By Eugene O’Neill; directed by Carol Laratonda. Simpatico Theatre Project production through March 29, 2009 at Adrienne Second Stage, 2030 Sansom St. (215) 423-0254 or simpaticotheatre.org.
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