Long Day's Journey Into Night

Yes, it's almost 3 hours long. Yes, it's just 4 chemically altered characters alternating between yelling at each other and doing pages-long soliloquies. Yes, they never leave the single set. And you know what? It's amazing. This is literally master class in acting. Eugene O'Neill is a tough slog, but it was totally worth it to see these 4 inhabit the roles. I've forgotten how good an actor Peter Gallagher is and it's no small feat holding your own against Jack Lemmon. Don't try to compare it to the 1962 Katharine Hepburn film version... this one is like going to the theater, without having to leave your couch.

This is a film of the 1986 Broadway production of the play. The unusual thing about this production is the use of overlapping dialog -- the actors intentionally step on each other's lines. This gives the effect that none of the characters is listening to any of the other characters. It is disorienting, but it is also true to life. Humans rarely communicate. They just talk at each other, not with each other. The results are the tragedy that we see in the play -- people reduced to ghosts lost in the fog and in the night.

Having once played Edmund Tyrone myself in summer stock back in 1976, and coming from an Irish-American family, I tend to be a tough critic of productions of this play. For my money, however, this is the most nuanced, well-acted production of LDJIN available. Lemmon perfectly embodies the combination of grandiosity and pettiness that comprise James Tyrone, Sr. Peter Gallagher is a finely poetic Edmund, and Kevin Spacey's Jamie is the most scalding portrait of self-loathing I have ever seen.

The linchpin of the story, for being everybody's scapegoat, is of course Mary Tyrone, and Bethel Leslie's performance is the bedrock and great surprise of this production. Her Mary is less affected and more internal than that of the lacier Katharine Hepburn, who to me always seemed to have one eye on the camera. Having grown up with a real M.T. in my own extended family, I can state from experience that Miss Leslie's "fogbound" portrayal is vastly more authentic, and, to me at least, the more heartbreaking for it.

A superb production all around.

'A Long Day's Journey into Night' (1987)

Opening thoughts: Eugene O'Neill's (one of America's finest playwrights, up there with Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller) 'Long Day's Journey into Night' is a hugely powerful work and one of the greats of the 20th century. Being indeed masterful in character writing and character development and the emotion that pulsates throughout is intense and moving. The first act though may test the patience of first time viewers, with its deliberate pace and heavier emphasis on character and words than plot.

The two best known names are Jack Lemmon, a very amiable actor who was often typecast but did the type of role incredibly well but here as against type as one can get, and Kevin Spacey, hate him as a person but he is/was a heck of an actor. Along with my love of the play and wanting to see as many productions/adaptations as possible, they were my main reasons for seeing this version. While not one of the best, it is still very well crafted and powerful.

Bad things: Limitations do show in the photography and settings, which do an under-budgeted and disorganised feel.

The photography also looking a bit too static and filmed play-like.

Good things: It however is incredibly well acted. The best performances coming from a truly devastatingly moving Bethyl Leslie as the most richly drawn character of the play and from Spacey in a masterclass of searingly intense self-loathing. Peter Gallagher is also moving. Lemmon doesn't quite embody his patriarchal role in the same way as the others do, but he does an admirable job playing against type and is very commanding. The chemistry smolders between the four, Lemmon and Leslie and Lemmon and Spacey particularly so.

O'Neill's writing is hugely intelligent, thought-provoking and complex in the way the characters are written and interact. It is very heavy in talk, and it is very uncompromising talk, but it's the kind that is always crucial to every character, their actions, way of thinking and motivations.

Moreover, the production is deliberately paced, but actually never felt dull to me (even the early portions), in fact for me it flew by. It also has a big emotional impact, especially with Mary and how harrowingly she declines, both in a searingly intense and tear-inducingly moving way which makes it not an easy watch. The direction throughout is sympathetic and intelligent. The characters still are psychologically fascinating, as usual with O'Neill, they have been criticised for being unlikeable but to me they have always come over as very realistic (like the subject matter itself, so much so it hit home with me). While they have their flaws, then again most characters in most films do, they are so powerfully and intricately written that it was hard not to relate.

Closing thoughts: Concluding, not perfect with visual limitations and some static-ness but very impressive everywhere else.

8/10.

Outstanding performances highlight this televised version of the 1986 stage triumph of Eugene O'Neill's electrifying play about a family whose lives continuously crumble with each hour in one day. Lemmon is brilliant as the patriarch, a faded matinee idol; Leslie, as a dope addict; Spacey, exceptional as a drunken loafer and Gallagher as the youngest son, stricken with consumption. Passionate acting, superb pacing and top notch direction make this extraordinary production worth the watch.