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Summary: The light at the end of the tunnel...
Review: ...does not exist. That seems to be the message of this dark, depressing -- and yet, enthralling and mysteriously beautiful drama. As bleak as it is, its essential humanity has rendered an immortal classic. O'Neill, of course, was not just the first major figure in American drama: he practically made it, giving it a legitimacy and relevancy for the first time. As with many subsequent American plays -- think of Death of a Salesman or most of Tennessee William's better-known plays -- it centers on a family. In this particular case, the family happens to be a close reflection of O'Neill's own; the character of Edmund is his alter ego. In fact, the play was so autobiographical that O'Neill would not have it performed until after his death. It recounts a day in the life of the family by offering interactions between every possible combination of the four members of the family. The play is stunning and stark in its brutal depiction of the Tyrone family, a series of frightfully honest vignettes that destroys the hallowed ideal image of the close, contented American family. All members of the Tyrone family have their demons and their reasons for the inhumanity that they show toward each other. O'Neill does not judge them: he merely presents them as they are, without pretense or adornment. Hardly even a glimmer of light appears in the play, and the ending comes and goes without leaving even a single shred of hope. With subject matter like this, why, then, has the play remained popular for half a century, and why does it retain its power? For one thing, its sheer, unabated emotion touches a deep, almost primal, human chord. It speaks to us in the brutally honest way that a television sitcom never could. Most people probably see more of themselves in the Tyrone than they would like to admit, even to themselves. Their quarrels are probably not as striking and unfamiliar as most people would like to think. The play touches the heart even as it touches the soul, leaving the reader (or the viewer) drenched in an overwhelming sea of emotion at play's end. It is a stunning play that cuts straight to the core of a large part of the darker side of the American experience. Unlike many great plays, it also reads very well and very smoothly on the page. Anyone interested in classic drama or American literature will find a dark goldmine here.
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Summary: Romantic Read
Review: A morphine fiend, two alcoholics and a nihilistic would-be-poet dying of consumption- what more could you ask for? Puts people like Baudelaire back in style.
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Summary: Intense, intelligent and insightful - Read it!
Review: An excellent play which depicts a family in turmoil. It has alot to say about how drugs are used to escape reality but ultimately only add to problems. All characters are easy to sympathise with. O'Neill said that this play (autobiographical) was written amongst blood and tears and it shows.
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Summary: brilliant
Review: an intrigingly subtle tale of denial, hopelessness, and regret.
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Summary: O'NEILL'S FINEST
Review: As an author with my debut novel in its initial release (and a former drama coach), I am a great admirer of the works of Eugene O'Neill. LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, simply put, is the finest play ever written by an American playwright. It tells the tale of a troubled family--the competing egos, ambitions, delusions, and escapes of the varied family members. It is largely based on O'Neill's family. This play has won every award imaginable, and it is still frequently staged. LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is immortal. It belongs to the ages, and it will survive forever.
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Summary: Superb Theatre
Review: As professor Harold Bloom asserts in his excellent forward: "Eugene O'Neill is single handidly responsible for creating a vibrant and important American Theatre". LONG DAY'S JOURNEY caps a brilliant artistic life with an autobiographical work that is difficult, complex, tragic, heartbreaking and filled with stunning poetry. O'Neill's greatest gift was, arguably, his uncanny knack for spinning a poetic phrase. In a bold stroke, he populates the family Tyrone with a menagerie of fragile beings who find strength in language and discourse. It is little wonder that O'Neill demanded that LONG DAY's remain unproduced until after his death. He his boldly facing every personal and familial demon. With crashing honesty and a touch of jet-black humor, he leaves no stone uncovered as he weaves a horrifying tale of the ultimate dysfunctional family. LONG DAY'S JOURNEY into night is not for the weak of back or the faint of heart. It is depressing to be sure. But among the rubble of these tortured lives, O'Neill finds the spiritual strength in these flawed and fallen angels and creates true linguistic magic. A certain must own for any theatre fan or practitoner. Simply suberb theatre.
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Summary: An Aching Cry From the Heart
Review: Before dysfunctional families became talk show circus acts, they were used as morality tales to warn us about the wages of sin. When that dysfunctional family is a playwright's own, and when that playwright is as gifted as Eugene O'Neill, we get a work of genius that makes other morality plays look like cartoons.
Firstly, a warning: this is an utterly depressing work. It doesn't contain anything upbeat. The characters start at bleak and chart a passage to despairing. If you are the kind of person who can't stand angst, then this play is not for you. Long Day's Journey works on countless levels and addresses themes of surpassing worth, but pretty it is not. I can understand why some people would hate it. What I don't understand is why they would read it in the first place.
Now for the good stuff. This is a play that addresses sins like vanity, pride and self-deceit, but in a way that does not preach, beat its breast, or feel contrived. How characters of such obvious intelligence come to such a pass is what fascinates. Through the course of the play, we come to see that talent, brains and social standing are insufficient to life's sustenance; the vital ingredient is sternness of character, and each of the protagonists in Long Day's Journey suffer from failings of character to a greater or lesser degree.
The title is a poetic metaphor that echoes the course of the family's lives. Substitute 'suffering' for 'day' and 'hell' for 'night' and you will get a clear picture of the play's progression. It observes not only the classical unities of time, action and place, but strives for the Shakespearean in its elocution. O'Neill's language is magnificent--he achieves a spare eloquence that meets the tenets of open verse. This re-infusion of poetry back into the playwright's craft is not the least of his achievements.
Many existential plays achieve their thematic objectives by indulging in theatricality. Even good plays like "Death of a Salesman" or "A Streetcar Named Desire" suffer from a sense of artifice. But "Long Day's Journey" feels genuine to its core. This is not a product of the imagination, but a story from a master storyteller who is baring his own soul. These are his own demons on display and the pain we feel stems from the fact that two of those demons are his mother and his father.
I don't know what it took for him to write this work. This is more a confession than a catharsis and one suspects that O'Neill derived no comfort or spiritual release from giving us this gift. We are the sole beneficiaries of his largesse, and this knowledge imparts a special sense of poignancy to the sympathy we already feel for its bent and wounded incumbents.
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Summary: excellent edition of classic play
Review: Bloom's introduction frames this American masterpiece with precision and insight. In my opinion, O'Neill's best play, Long Day's Journey Into Night is better read than performed as the nuance and poetry of his stage direction and descriptions of gestures are what make this play extraordinary. A dark and depressing book, it accurately depicts the ravages of addiction and its impact on the family.
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Summary: Long Day's Journey Into Boredom
Review: Convinced by my computer teacher to read this play, I checked it out in the library and read it in within days. The result: A very dissatisfied reader. Something like this won the Pulitzer Prize? If any of his plays should have won it (which a couple of them did), it should have been All God's Chillun Got Wings, not this pointless play. The family in this play was MUCH too dysfunctional. All they did all day (which the whole play was in one day) was argue and argue and argue. And when at times it seemed as if the arguing would end, one of the four characters said something that would spark up a new argument. Woe be to my computer teacher for suggesting me this book, for it bore me into tears.
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Summary: Good But A Little Too Long
Review: Don't get me wrong. This was a great play about a lot of touchy issues that were dealt with well. It shows that a lot of times families have a lot of problems, and you can argue and fight over them, but in fact they are very difficult to overcome. This is a family that will be torn apart forever because of what has happened to them, and that's a very tragic thing. BUT. My only complaint is that Eugene O'Neill, despite being very courageous and brilliant in writing this play, gets a little wordy. I think that the whole dialogue between Edmond and Tyrone at the beginning of the final scene is uncomfortably long--some of the dialogue I believe could have been cut. Then again, it's just my opinion. It is, however, a wonderful play.
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