| A hypothetical LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. The playing here is so extrinsic, O'Neill's great, anguished opus only registers approximately; it's just nearly there. Only Manville gets inside her character enough to persuade and though she isn't convincingly infirm she well captures Mary Tyrone's steely, regular rage. The men give us character sketches, their performances are either too broad or too contemporary and none are as crushed by their circumstance, as thoroughly undone by grief, as I think O'Neill intends. The play, excessive as it is, is of course very difficult to stage. It's a quartet, basically, and it requires a degree of symmetry that's difficult to establish and maintain throughout. Without an exquisite balance of related intentions, the glut of lamentations can grow wearisome, especially if they seem affected as they sometimes do here. Despite this production's flaws, LONG DAY'S JOURNEY is still staggering. If you have lived inside a suffering family, you won't fail to find some version of what you've known here. Like Shakespeare before him, it is O'Neill's ever sublime achievement to have given sorrow words. |
