Long Day's Journey Into Night

Rating:
Summary: 1957 Pulitzer Prize Winning Play
Review: This is O'Neill's third Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. The fascinating dramatic play focuses on the life of an addicted, dysfunctional family that suffers greatly with their demons of the past. Eugene O'Neill's 1940 autobiographical story takes place in one long day and proceeds into the brooding night. It is a courageous account of the tortured soul and his haunted family.

In a dedication to his wife, O'Neil writes, "I give you the original script of this play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood."

The setting is August 1912, at the summer home where the fog lays heavily, foghorns blow loud contrasting with the chime of bells. The mood is somber just like the symbolic recurring fog that impairs vision and obscures reality. The bells are symbolic of the convent where the main character Mary Tyrone was happiest.

The focus of the family is Mary, 54, wife, mother of two sons, wife of Tyrone. At the beginning, we are left to imagine and second guess what is bothering Mary and later it is clearly defined that she is addicted to morphine. Mary lives in the past, where she was in a convent and had a dream to be a concert pianist.

James Tyrone, 65, an alcoholic known by his family as a miser, and whose real concern was to invest money into property rather then family because of a nagging fear from his childhood days -the threat of the poorhouse. He was considered a handsome stage actor and regrets what he could have been,- a great Shakespearean actor.

Jamie Tyrone - the elder 34 year old son, another alcoholic always labeled a loser by his parents. He has a love-hate relationship with his younger brother Edmund as Jamie's confesses that because of his own hatred of himself, his role was to make his younger brother a failure too.

Edmund Tyrone - 24-year old son is a reader of great literature and an aspiring poet. He has tuberculosis and with concern wonders whether his miser father will send him to a shabby institution. Eugene O'Neill is the real-life character of Edmund.

O'Neill provides readers with more than adequate stage direction; we get a real sense of the way we are to interpret the readings including the shifting moods. This is a book that keeps on going. It is superb. And if you ever want to see this play come alive, see the movie with Katherine Hepburn. Her remarkable portrayal of Mary was memorable! ....MzRizz