Word: journeyer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...characters in O'Neil's Long Day's Journey have two ways of living in the fog they so desperately seek--either live the lie of the Norman Lear family, or drink themselves into oblivion. The actors in this production do not appear drunk enough to make their concessions natural. O'Neil's stage directions speak of a "real, if alcoholic, affection" expressed between Tyrone and Edmund, but this never becomes apparent. O'Neil; emphasized human kinship as a source of isolation but also of communality--O'Neil's love for his third wife empowered him to write this play...
Although O'Neil described Long Day's Journey as the story of the "four haunted Tyrones," rarely have they been presented as four equally tragic protagonists. Jamie or Tyrone are often remembered as the main protagonist due to legendary performances by Jason Robards, Jr. Interestingly, Gammons has chosen to put Edmund and his disease (all references to consumption are removed, his disease now presumably AIDS) center stage, but Winsome Brown certainly merits the primacy accorded her character...
Gammons's set for Long Day's Journey stunningly evokes an abstract dream world. Mary's ladder leads to a very physical dream world of morphine in an upstairs room, but even the ground-level activities of this family take on a nightmarish eeriness. The backs of the four chairs are conspicuously unmatched and resemble the outline of a coffin. The set may be too aesthetically pleasing to fit Mary's description of her cheap home, but that in fact only increases our sense of her delusions...
...Gammons's adaptation of Long Day's Journey, there is no "day," no semblance of contentment. From beginning to end, the audience must confront the unmitigated desolation of the Tyrone family. And if this reading provides less solace, it is nonetheless compelling...
Long Day's Journey Into Night--by Eugene O'Neill. In the Loeb Experimental Theater at 7:30 p.m. Free...