Long Day's Journey Indeed

When you win lotto tickets to this matinee, you go. You drop everything and go. 

After last week's perfectly Shakespearean weekend, and seeing just how busy I'm going to be for the rest of the month, I wasn't quite ready to stop seeing amazing theater just yet, so I bought tickets to two more shows for this week. And then, on top of that, I won tickets to the matinee preview of Long Day's Journey into Night (I've now won TWO of the Roundabout's $20 ticket lotteries) on Wednesday. I got the call at 1135am, so I'm pretty sure I only won because someone else didn't (or couldn't) claim their tickets, but I DON'T CARE! I will always take $20 tickets to a Broadway show!

This Eugene O'Neill classic is one that I've never seen before, and, given the text and length of the show, I'm honestly not surprised. It's a four-hander (technically five, with the maid, but she flits in and out and is more set-dressing than anything). Every single character is flawed beyond belief, and they all spend good chunks of time talking about it. The show is nearly four-hours long (it could definitely use some cuts), and the language is beautiful, albeit slightly repetitive (I think that's the point). The show takes place over one day in the Summer of 1912 in one room with one family. The audience quickly watches as these characters completely crumble, and eventually the whole family falls apart. Even though these characters are really fucked up, they're endearing. I don't know how O'Neill did it, but their flaws make them fully realized and the audience is completely invested in the outcome (I loved the shocked gasps when something surprised them).

The show first premiered on Broadway in 1956. It's semi-autobiographical, O'Neill's magnum opus, and is considered to be one of America's best plays. It even won a Pulitzer. And I get why. It's beautiful. And tragic. And HUGE. The journey that these four people go on over the course of one day is so intense. It's...overwhelming. But it's so long!

Jessica Lange is amazing as Mary Tyrone. She's restless and nervous and repetitive and literally cannot sit or stand still. It's perfect. And Gabriel Byrne's James is her perfect foil. His slow burn works wonderfully with her fits and starts. You can really see how much they both love and hurt each other. And the boys are great, too. Michael Shannon is always wonderful, especially so as Jaime. His drunken confession to John Gallagher, Jr's Edmund is terrifying and honest and somehow, ultimately, loving.

It's a great piece of theater. But it's a lot. And as piece one in a two-show day, it's even more incredible. It did make The Crucible seem to fly by, however.