| It’s usually long, sure, but rarely is O’Neill’s great play as listless as it is in this pointlessly truncated version. What’s lost in translation, or in excision, is the cumulative emotional force that the play’s repetitions provide. The Tyrone’s savage each other relentlessly. Unremitting recrimination is the fulcrum of their grief. To reduce their protests lessens the size of their sorrows. The choice to contract the play seems entirely arbitrary; it’s unclear what gain was intended in doing so. The play is contemporized, but, despite the references to Covid, Trump, etc., it doesn’t translate to this moment in the least. Worse, none of the actors find the depth of despair—or the great sympathy—that O’Neill depicts so plainly perhaps because they don’t have the time. Additionally, some choices here—Mary climbing the stairs to get high followed by projections of a skeleton climbing with her—are just obvious and silly. I left the theatre waiting for the play to start. |
