'Long Day's Journey into Night', by Eugene O'Neill, ATC Production 20 July 2022

Last night my wife Tania and I went to the Auckland Theatre Company's production of 'Long Day's Journey into Night' by Eugene O'Neill, the great American playwright. What a wonderful production ! If you love theatre I highly recommend this tragic tale of a family gripped in lost dreams, resentments and the tyranny of memory. O'Neill's writing is sublime as it quickly cracks the thin veneer of civility between the family members to dive into the emotional layers within.

The cheapskate, land owning father who mourns for a lost dramatic career; a declining mother who once fought valiantly against her addiction only to succumb yet again; an embittered elder son who's seen it all before and rails against his parent's expectations of him when they themselves have fallen so far short; and an unwell younger son, weakened by the prospect of an early death through 'consumption' (tuberculosis) now curable if his father would only pony up with the money, and so much more. It sounds like a bummer and it is - but it is told beautifully. Its a great night in the theatre.

Congratulations to the Auckland Theatre Company and especially to the four actors who held the whole work together. They were all uniformly excellent - like a string quartet performing one of the great masterworks of the repertoire. Congratulations too to the Director who presented an economical yet evocative directorial style - and to the whole production team whose efforts were well and truly up to the challenge of this masterwork of American theatre.


'Long Day's Journey into Night' by Eugene O'Neill, Wikipedia Article


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