Long Days Journey Into Night- Eugene O'Neill

      The Oregon Shakespeare Festival presents many other productions than the Bard's repertoire.  The actors who are members of the company are asked to perform a number of different productions including some of the great writers in American theater.  Nobel Prize winner Eugene O'Neill(1936)  is one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century.  His long list of accomplishments includes many well recognized titles such as The Iceman Cometh, Mourning Becomes Electra, and Long Days Journey Into Night(1941).  This last is his most famous, most remembered, most loved of all his works.
       This play has been dissected, analyzed, and discussed since its first showing long after the author's death.   Because of its personal themes, O'Neill requested that it not be released until 25 years after his death.  His widow made the effort to overlook the request, and it was released in 1957.
       Long Days Journey Into Night won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1958.  This largely autobiographical work is one of three works that are based on his life and early years spent with his father, an actor, and his mother, a disillusioned spouse of a professional stage actor who had difficulty providing for his wife and 2 children.  O'Neill himself suffered from alcoholism and depression.  One brother suffered and died from alcoholism.  A son,  Eugene,Jr. died of alcoholism at age 40.  O'Neill's mother was addicted to potassium bromide and was often incapacitated as a result.
      The play examines a day-in-the-life-of the family as it exists during a 24 hour period.  The long play-3 1/2 hours- stretches from early morning to the wee hours of the following day.  Over this period we come to know the cast members: James Tyrone, the father, Mary, the Mother, and the two sons:James, Jr., and Edmund .  The 2 sons are currently living at home: one a failed actor dealing with alcoholism; the younger brother confronting tuberculosis, the Mother recently returned to the house after another stint at a sanatorium for drug addiction; and the Father, clearly an alcoholic.
      All four bring their years to the stage as O'Neill dissects the individual histories, from their earliest years to the most recent.  Nothing is sacred; all faults are subject to discussion.  All shortcomings are exposed to the light of day.  Old slights are recalled, remembered accurately or only slightly.  Past efforts to cope are mentioned, indicating failed attempts that expose the pains of failure.  A constant theme returned to during the play is the immigrant experience of the father. Born in Ireland, he experienced the poverty of the Irish landscape that drove so many to seek a new life in the USA.   Despite the years since his arrival, he can fondly recall some memories of his childhood in Ireland.
      This play was part of O'Neill's effort to bring a new realism to the stage and he set a new standard for drama in the 20th century that left classical themes for modern writing, realism voiced in a vernacular that the audience could readily identify with.   If one has a drop of Irish blood running through his veins, this play will strike a familiar tone.  The movie made shortly after the play's appearance was also well received in 1962, and featured Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell.