100 Greatest American Plays by Thomas S. Hischak

Author:Thomas S. Hischak [Hischak, Thomas S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2016-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Long Day’s Journey into Night

A drama by Eugene O’Neill

Premiere: November 7, 1956 (Helen Hayes Theatre); 390 performances

Pulitzer Prize (1957)

New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1957)

Tony Award (1957)

Widely agreed to be Eugene O’Neill’s greatest work, Long Day’s Journey into Night is also one of the glories of the American theatre. It is the autobiographical play turned into searing tragedy.

Plot: The former matinee idol James Tyrone has retired from the theatre and lives on the Connecticut coast with his fragile wife, Mary; his womanizing, alcoholic elder son, Jamie; and his poetic, sickly younger son, Edmund. One morning in 1912, James notices that Mary is unusually restless, worried as she is about their two sons. Edmund’s consumption has returned and it looks like he will have to go into a sanitarium. Mary is a former morphine addict and the family fears that these emotional upsets will push her back onto the drug. As the day progresses into night, past regrets and painful memories are dug up, incriminations are made, and tensions are high. Mary secures some morphine from the local druggist and by nightfall is in a foggy stupor. Later that night, Jamie returns from the local whorehouse more drunk and agitated than usual and has it out with Edmund; the two brothers are bound in mutual love and distrust. James manages to quiet them both as Mary wanders through the house dragging her wedding dress behind her and thinking she is still a young student in her convent boarding school.

Casts for Long Day’s Journey into Night

James

Mary

Jamie

Edmund

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