Long Day's Journey into Night
Long Day's Journey into Night is a play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939–1941 and first published posthumously in 1956.[5] It is widely regarded as his magnum opus and one of the great American plays of the 20th century.[6] It premiered in Sweden in February 1956 and then opened on Broadway in November 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. O'Neill received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama posthumously for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work is openly autobiographical in nature. The "long day" in the title refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.
For other uses, see Long Day's Journey into Night (disambiguation).Long Day's Journey into Night
Mary Cavan Tyrone
James Tyrone
Edmund Tyrone
James Tyrone Jr.
Cathleen
February 2, 1956
Royal Dramatic Theatre
Stockholm, Sweden
English
An autobiographical account of an explosive home life with a morphine-addicted mother and alcoholic father.
The summer home of the Tyrones, August 1912
Summary[edit]
The play takes place on a single day in August 1912. The setting is Monte Cristo Cottage, the seaside home of the Tyrones in Connecticut. The four main characters are the semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill, his older brother, and their parents.
The play portrays a family struggling to grapple with the realities and consequences of each member's failings. The parents and two sons blame and resent each other for various reasons; bitterness and jealousy serve as proxies for ultimately failed attempts at tenderness and compassion. The family's enduring emotional and psychological stress is fueled by their shared self-analysis, combined with articulate honesty. The story deals with addiction, unfulfilled dreams, moral flaws, and the struggle of family relationships.
Several characters are referenced in the play but do not appear on stage:
History of the play[edit]
O'Neill finished revising the manuscript into its final version in March 1941.[14] He did not want it ever produced as a play, and did not even want it published during his lifetime, writing to his friend, the critic George Jean Nathan: "There are good reasons in the play itself...why I'm keeping this one very much to myself, as you will appreciate when you read it."[14]
O'Neill did not copyright the play. In 1945 he had a sealed copy of the manuscript placed in the document vault of publisher Random House, instructing that it not be published until 25 years after his death. He sent a second sealed copy to the O'Neill collection at Yale University.[14]
Soon after O'Neill's death, his widow Carlotta Monterey demanded that Random House contravene O'Neill's explicit wishes and publish the play at once. "We refused, of course," wrote publisher Bennett Cerf in his memoirs, "but then were horrified to learn that legally all the cards were in her hand. … I do not regret that we took the stand we did, because I still think we were right."[15] Monterey had the play published by the Yale University Press in 1956, with the bulk of the proceeds deeded to Yale's Eugene O'Neill Collection and for scholarships at its drama school.[14]
Film adaptations[edit]
The play was made into a 1962 film starring Katharine Hepburn as Mary, Ralph Richardson as James, Jason Robards as Jamie, Dean Stockwell as Edmund, and Jeanne Barr as Cathleen. The movie was directed by Sidney Lumet. At that year's Cannes Film Festival, Richardson, Robards and Stockwell all received Best Actor awards, and Hepburn was named Best Actress. Hepburn also earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 1973, the ITV Sunday Night Theatre program on British television presented a videotaped television version of the 1971 production at the National Theatre directed by Peter Wood and starring Laurence Olivier, Constance Cummings, Denis Quilley, and Ronald Pickup. Olivier won a Best Actor Emmy Award for this performance.
A 1982 TV film directed by William Woodman was produced by ABC featuring an all-African American cast of Earle Hyman (James), Ruby Dee (Mary), Thommie Blackwell (Jamie), and Peter Francis James (Edmund).
A 1987 TV film directed by Jonathan Miller starred Kevin Spacey as Jamie, Peter Gallagher as Edmund, Jack Lemmon as James Tyrone, Bethel Leslie as Mary, and Jodie Lynne McClintock as Cathleen. Lemmon was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in Mini-Series or Made-for-TV Movie the following year.
A 1996 film adaptation was directed by Canadian director David Wellington and starred William Hutt as James, Martha Henry as Mary, Peter Donaldson as Jamie, Tom McCamus as Edmund and Martha Burns as Cathleen. The same cast had previously performed the play at Canada's Stratford Festival; Wellington essentially filmed the stage production without significant changes. The film swept the acting awards at the 17th Genie Awards, winning awards for Hutt, Henry, Donaldson and Burns. This version later was aired by PBS on its Great Performances series in 1999.[23]
A new film adaptation was filmed in 2022, directed by Jonathan Kent (in his feature directorial debut) and starring Jessica Lange (reprising her role from the 2016 Broadway revival), Ed Harris, Ben Foster, and Colin Morgan. The film has yet to be released.[24]