Worth the Journey

There’s plenty of truth in the title of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” the autobiographical drama about a dysfunctional Irish-American family now playing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. The play, set in 1912, is a three-and-a-half-hour exploration of addiction, guilt, nostalgia and the fine line between familial love and hate.

Author O’Neill described his work as “a play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood.” The work is so close to O’Neill’s own background that he insisted it not be staged until 25 years after his death. Written in 1942, it first premiered in 1956.

Richard Eyre’s revival features Jeremy Irons as patriarch actor James Tyrone, Lesley Manville as the morphine addicted mother Mary, Rory Keenan as the elder drunk philandering brother Jamie and Matthew Beard as the younger poetic son Edmond, struck with tuberculosis.

The family comes together at their Connecticut summer house as mother and wife Mary has just returned from rehab and is at the start of another relapse. The fog that is referenced throughout the play is used as a metaphor for a variety of truths covered up by each character’s self-deception.

Mary’s morphine fixes help her escape the reality of a married life of empty rooms, loneliness and never having a real home. Manville is mesmerizing in this part, one moment she is dreamily lost in rose-tinted nostalgia and the next she is shouting venomous accusations at the men in her life.

Equally entrancing is Irons as the actor father, who shines brightest in a scene with son Edmond when he confesses his origins of miserliness lie in a destitute and impoverished childhood. His American accent might waver but Irons gives a stellar performance as the hammy penny pinching patriarch.

Beard plays the young, tuberculosis ridden poet Edmond nicely and Keenan as big brother James delivers an impactful final scene confession. Jessica Regan provides a bit of comic relief as the maid Cathleen.

It’s a long long journey of watching a family tear itself apart, but with outstanding performances by Irons and Manville it’s one definitely worth taking.

"Long Day's Journey Into Night" is now playing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts through July 1, 2018. Tickets at www.thewallis.org.