Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Long Day's Journey Into Night

2013; Penn State University Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/eugeoneirevi.34.1.0122

2161-4318

Katie N. Johnson,

To view Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical masterpiece, which O'Neill described as “written in tears and blood,” one must brace oneself, even for a matinee in London's West End. The once-glorious Apollo Theatre is a fitting venue for Long Day's Journey Into Night, for in spite of its recent exterior renovation, the inside of this 1901 theater, with its red-velvet drapes and cushions, now seems a bit worn, much like the shabby interior of the Tyrone family cottage. Set designer Lez Brotherston captures James Tyrone's penny-pinching existence, with the set's mismatched wicker furniture and middle-class decorations. Theatrical posters from Tyrone's former acting career—as the lead in Julius Caesar and The Count of Monte Cristo—peer out like the ancestors haunting the Mannon mansion in Mourning Becomes Electra. A screen door left ajar on stage allows early morning light (designed by Mark Henderson) to filter in, but a closer look also reveals dirty windows, showing neglect of the turn-of-the-century cottage that, as Mary Tyrone repeatedly says, has never been a proper home.Larry Blank's melancholic score with harp and cello merges with the mournful cry of sea gulls and the crash of the waves to signal the beginning of the play. When the lights come up, London's celebrated actor David Suchet takes the stage as the grand patriarch James Tyrone. Shortly thereafter, Laurie Metcalf follows as Mary Tyrone, one of O'Neill's most haunting mother characters. The slight delay is telling, for rather than having the couple appear on stage together, as O'Neill's stage directions indicate, director Anthony Page focuses this production on James Tyrone and Suchet. Even the playbill's cover emphasizes the lead actor, who stares directly at the audience, while Metcalf looks away, into the distance. While O'Neill has often been charged with cultivating interest in his male characters at the expense of the female ones, one could never say this about Long Day's Journey. In fact, Robert Falls's 2003 critically acclaimed Broadway production starring Vanessa Redgrave (like Katharine Hepburn before her, on film) made Mary the unforgettable centerpiece of the story. As staged by Page, however, this Long Day's Journey is more about the Tyrone men, and especially about its star, whom London audiences saw last year in the same theater as the father in Arthur Miller's All My Sons.Suchet does not disappoint, delivering a richly layered performance with unexpected nuances. Many other actors (e.g., Brian Dennehy, Ralph Richardson) have portrayed James Tyrone as a tyrannical patriarch, lashing out with anger—and often drunken rage—at his family. Suchet displays a greater range of complexity, especially in showing the gentler side of Tyrone. In act 4, for example, Suchet's delivery of Tyrone's monologue about growing up in poverty is tender and touching. And as he contemplates the string of bad decisions that led to his family's decline—especially in selling out to “that God-damned play I bought for a song and made such a great success in”—Suchet's portrayal makes Tyrone surprisingly vulnerable. There is also a sparkle in Suchet's characterization that allows for wit and humor. When Tyrone says Edmund can go to any sanatorium he desires in order to cure his tuberculosis, his repeated qualification, “within reason,” adds a much-needed humorous break in the heart-wrenching pathos. We also see Tyrone as the formerly dashing stage star who once rivaled Edwin Booth; Tyrone's claim that he was the best Shakespearean actor of his generation becomes believable when Suchet, perched dramatically on a card-table center stage, recites lines from Julius Caesar. Yet, for all of the nuances that Suchet brings to the role, especially in showing Tyrone's humanity, he could have displayed more of the despotic side of the father who has managed to destroy a family. In cultivating sympathy for Tyrone, Suchet neglected the patriarch's darker, abusive side.As Edmund, the autobiographical stand-in for O'Neill himself, the award-winning Kyle Soller delivers a compelling performance. Thin and pale, Soller looks a bit like the tubercular young O'Neill. With an ever-intensifying cough, glassy eyes, and fever shivers, Soller's portrayal of the illness, a barometer of the impending tragedy, builds with intensity throughout the play, as if to say a storm is coming. Even when he doesn't have lines, Soller commands attention, for he is an actor who is constantly alive on stage. As performed by Soller, Edmund's monologue about being dissolved in, and belonging to, the sea resonates with urgency. The scene between Suchet and Soller at the top of act 4 is perhaps the best of the production. Edmund's sickly eyes watch his father with both pride and repugnance, as he comes to understand why the “stinking old tightwad” (referred to as “old Gaspard” by Jamie, played unevenly by Trevor White) could never spend money freely on his family. When Edmund says, “Don't lie about it! … Have you no pride or shame?” there are real tears in Soller's eyes; and when Tyrone sees he has been caught in another lie, a chill passes over the audience.If Page's production focused on the Tyrone men, it came at the expense of his treatment of Mary Tyrone. Stage and television veteran Laurie Metcalf seems miscast as Mary. A founding member of the experimental Steppenwolf Theatre, Metcalf possesses an acting style that is dissonant with Suchet's, and at times they appear to be in different plays. After an uneven first act, however, the production began to click as Metcalf conveyed Mary's agony, moving at times like a caged animal. Her scene with Cathleen (played delightfully by Rosie Sansom) provides nice relief in an otherwise flat performance. Mary's final lines—the concluding lines of the play—are oddly delivered as Metcalf lies on the ground stage left. With Mary jettisoned to the side, Page directs focus toward the men, who occupy center stage. No wonder that Mary will walk up the stairs and inject herself with more morphine when the curtain comes down.As for the audience, we must contemplate our own life journeys, lest we make the same tragic mistakes as the Tyrones. It is impossible to view this play written in tears and blood and not be moved to contemplate how family shapes us. This realization shook O'Neill deeply as he wrote his great tragedy. And while it may seem odd that he would dedicate this play to Carlotta on their anniversary, she must have known, as did he, what an act of love it was.