‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ by Eugene O’Neill (1941) – 179 pages

Many claim that ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ is the greatest play written by a writer from the United States. Personally I think that distinction belongs to another play written by Eugene O’Neill, ‘The Iceman Cometh’. If you ever get the chance to see Lee Marvin in John Frankenheimer’s movie ‘The Iceman Cometh’ from 1973, don’t miss it. Lee Marvin plays gregarious salesman Harry Hickey who comes to his old bar to destroy the pipe dreams of everyone who is at the bar. Pipe dreams are those lies we tell ourselves to get us through each day. That play profoundly moves me to this day.

But on to ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ which is O’Neill’s most autobiographical play. O’Neill wrote the play in 1941 about his wretched early family situation involving his father, mother, and older brother. O’Neill would not publish the play while he was alive, and he made arrangements not to publish it until 25 years after his death. However his widow Carlotta recognized what a great play it was, and had it published in 1956. The play was first performed in November, 1956.

As its title suggests, the play of four acts takes place during one day in 1912. The Tyrone family is living in their summer seaside home in Connecticut. The father James is a famous actor who could have been a great Shakespearean actor if he hadn’t settled for more money. The sons Jamie and Edmund are fully grown. Older brother Jamie works as an actor in jobs that his father gets for him but mainly Jamie is a rake about town spending most of his time in bars and whorehouses. Edmund, the younger son, has worked as a journalist, written poetry, and has traveled widely but is sickly and may have consumption (tuberculosis) probably somewhat due to excessive alcohol consumption. Edmund is O’Neill’s stand-in for himself. All three men are alcoholics, but it is the mother Mary who has the worse problem; she is a morphine addict and has been confined to a sanatorium before.

One can comprehend how difficult it was for Eugene O’Neill to confront his real family situation. This is family realism at its most honest and most brutal. Each character must confront his or her own reality and shortcomings or else another member of the family will point them out for him or her.

“None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever.”

I do think ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ is a very strong honest family drama. However it is somewhat of a sad and depressing play with no redemption for its characters. I prefer ‘The Iceman Cometh’ because while it is still brutally honest with the people on stage, it still offers a way out for these people at the end.

Under any conditions, Eugene O’Neill is still the greatest playwright from the United States.

Grade : A