Rating: 
Summary: an over view of the Tyron family
Review: Eugene O'Neills portrail of his family's love of detruction is almost beautiful. Its the perfect american tragity. The tyrone family have a certain lovely ness to there brokenness, they hurt one another with an unseen pleasure.
Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: Eventually, you could give five stars to the play, because the content is on such a high level, so impressive and heavy, it might change your life. But sometimes the conversations are a bit too confuse and too longdrawn that tension gets lost. The Tyrones, an isolated Irish family, is suffering bitterly. The father is stingy, the mother is a dope fiend, one son is an alcoholic and the other is deadly ill. After the stay in the sanatarium, the mother is very sensitive and the other family members try to avoid every conflict with her. But you can' t avoid destiny. Fights start in this family that has never been a unit. Past comes up, old problems come up. Everyone is blaming each other for every little malicious deed they have done once. It alway gets extremer, and as a reader you hope they just stop this misery, but you know there is no solution. It's an autobiographical play and it shows that Eugene O'Neill is a gifted real playwright
Rating:
Summary: Timeless themes revolving around the dysfunctional Tyrones!
Review: I haven't actually read a play since college and I picked this up because I am going to see the Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", starring Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennhey,and I always find that I appreciate shows like that more if I am familiar with the play itself. It was an enjoyable genre change for me!What makes this play particularly interesting is the autobiographical nature of the plot (so disturbingly autobiographical, in fact, that O'Neill would not allow its publication and production until after his death!). O'Neill dedicated the play to his wife, basically stating that writing this was his way of coming to grips with his own past and the "4 haunted Tryrones" of his life. I imagine that when this first appeared in the theaters in the 1950s, it struck a sensitive and somewhat controversial chord amongst the public since issues such as drug addiction and alcoholism were not common topics in popular entertainment at the time. I also enjoyed all the literary references to the likes of Shakespeare, Baudelaire and Swineburne (and so forth!). It made me want to acquaint myself with such literary talents once again! This is another example of a piece of literature that reaches across the decades with timeless themes such as familial love, loyalty, jealousy, guilt and betrayal, as well as depression, addiction and greed. While I pitied and even despised some of the qualities I saw in these characters, I couldn't help empathizing with Mary's nervous addiction as well as James' feeling of disappointment in his past failures. In other words, these characters are all so human, that I couldn't help being drawn into the realistic pathos of their lives.
Rating:
Summary: Timeless themes revolving around the dysfunctional Tyrones!
Review: I haven't actually read a play since college and I picked this up because I am going to see the Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", starring Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennhey,and I always find that I appreciate shows like that more if I am familiar with the play itself. It was an enjoyable genre change for me! What makes this play particularly interesting is the autobiographical nature of the plot (so disturbingly autobiographical, in fact, that O'Neill would not allow its publication and production until after his death!). O'Neill dedicated the play to his wife, basically stating that writing this was his way of coming to grips with his own past and the "4 haunted Tryrones" of his life. I imagine that when this first appeared in the theaters in the 1950s, it struck a sensitive and somewhat controversial chord amongst the public since issues such as drug addiction and alcoholism were not common topics in popular entertainment at the time. I also enjoyed all the literary references to the likes of Shakespeare, Baudelaire and Swineburne (and so forth!). It made me want to acquaint myself with such literary talents once again! This is another example of a piece of literature that reaches across the decades with timeless themes such as familial love, loyalty, jealousy, guilt and betrayal, as well as depression, addiction and greed. While I pitied and even despised some of the qualities I saw in these characters, I couldn't help empathizing with Mary's nervous addiction as well as James' feeling of disappointment in his past failures. In other words, these characters are all so human, that I couldn't help being drawn into the realistic pathos of their lives.
Rating:
Summary: THE GREATEST PLAYRIGHT OF THEM ALL!
Review: I love Eugene O'Neill--that's all there it to it. Forget Shakespeare (and all the others), with the exception of August Strindburg (for those who do not know, Strindburg was a hero of ONeill's, etc. although O'Neill, obviously went on to develope a voice all his own). When it comes to Eugene O'Neill you can either read his plays or watch them performed to get the impact--and I guarantee you, you will be impacted. When I first read this play ( twenty some years ago) it felt like I'd been punched in the stomach by a heavyweight. This man's life was turbulent, to be sure, plenty of pain and grief and sorrow--and he dealt with it by writing plays about it. Who can't relate to that? Read it, read all of Eugene O'Neill, America's greatest genius of the stage.
Rating:
Summary: O Neal is ruthlessly honest in this sordid, beautiful play
Review: I read the play when I was 19. I stumbled upon it on a dime rack at the library. One day, I was moving and had some time on my hands until the movers arrived to haul away my stuff. I pulled out my copy and was never the same again. I sat on the floor and read from the late morning to dusk--when the light was no longer sufficient to read by. I hadn't noticed that my shoulder had begun to ache or that my throat was screaming for water, I was absorbed in the play as if I was receiving a vision. Anyone who claims that the play is not well-written doesn't understand literature, nor have they seen the staged production. (I'd highly recommend the movie with Katherine Hepburn). The honesty of the playwright will put you through an emotional ringer that is difficult to detach yourself from long after the reading is done. The fog horn, the deception, the cutting words of the players all haunt your dreams. This is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Depresessing, Enthralling...Beautiful.
Review: If one needs the ultimate example of a classic American play, I would have to say the play about the most un-classic, untypical (or is it?) American family...Eugene O'Neill's "Long Days Journey Into Night." Set in the chlostrophobic New England summer house of the Tyrone's, and spanning over the course of one day, the Tyrone family--the stingy, retired actor James, the lonely opium addicted wife Mary, drunken Jamie, and sensitive, ill Edmund--avoids, denys, confronts and retreats from all their demons, until it is finally night, and they no longer can. Depressing, huh? Well, of course it is...but within it is something so powerful, so strangely beautiful, that the reader (or viewer) is enthralled. One sees seemingly strong James, ashamed of himself for selling out his acting abilities for financial security. Mary, lonely from James' years of touring, has turned to an opium addiction that she can not seem to confront. Jamie, from hate of his father's stinginess and his own self-blame, loses himself in alcohol and whores. And sweet, artistic, tubulcular Edmund (O'Neill's alter ego) plays witness in the deteration of his family's web of pain, denial and lies. All they want is for morning to come, another day to let the fog come in around them so they can forget again. In a way, isn't that what we all want to do sometimes? Just forget what's going on around us, even for a while. I would recommend this play as absolutly essential to read--for the fan of the theatre, literature, or a layman. Anyone can relate to the pure, raw emotion and guilt O'Neill conveys. Buy it now, you'll thank me later.
Rating:
Summary: Great Play About Early 20th Centry Drug Addiction
Review: If there was ever a book to justify the resources, both human and monetary to battle in the drug war, this is it. Set in the early 1900's America, this book is about a mother's heroin addiction and the shambles left behind. At a time when drugs were legal, all a woman had to do was go to her pharmacy and order a weekly dose, this book shows the ugliness addiction to this drug can do to a normally dysfunctional family. Whether the family was already dysfunctional is not known, but the mother's addiction most certainly made things worse. A great short play; a quick read.
Rating:
Summary: Long Days Journey from MRS MCWAINS CLASS
Review: In Mrs. Mcwains class, I have read Long Dya's Journey into night. This is the story of and Irish American family trying to struggle through thier every day lives and problems. As with most of O'neill's plays, each character struggles to overcome basic human problems and, in character with his style, ultimatly fail. Mary, the mother, can not accept anyything that will corrupt her image of the perfect family and denies any problems that come her way. Tyrone's excessive pride (McWains class, McWains class, Mcwains class) is his down fall. Jamie has given up on life, and Edmunds apathy prevents him from being able to help himself or his family. I personally enjoyed this book, however I hesitate to recomend it to the average reader looking for a new work to enjoy. O'neill has a style that is critcally acclaimed but very...well...boring. If your looking for an American classic though, Long Days Journey into Night (and to read it is a LONG days journey) is the one to pick. (from a student in MRS. MCWAINS CLASS)
Rating:
Summary: Man, This Play Rocks!
Review: It is the best. Read it and you will experience an AMERICAN bearing his soul as only Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Goethe could. For all the genius of Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear, none of his plays tore into who he actually was as honestly as O'Neill did in LDJIN. If you read this play, you will see the reality of four human beings as they actually are: free from the facades we put up everyday to make it through our lives, free from artifice. Only Tolstoy writes with this kind of emotional precision and depth. O'Neill is the first American who can legitimately be ranked among the greatest writers in the history of the world.
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