Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill. Wyndham’s Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London WC2 to 10 June 2024. 4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Johan Persson.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill. Wyndham’s Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London WC2 to 10 June 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“A very long but rewarding day.”

This long journey is regularly taken and there have been some magnificent casts in previous productions. Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson as the Tyrones lead this latest production directed by Jeremy Herrin about the family during one day in August 1912 in their home by the seaside in Connecticut facing up to the demons that haunt them. For Cox it is a return to the London stage after years as a character star in American films and in Succession. He is where he belongs. Herrin has placed it in a strange wooden box of rooms that receded into darkness – there are no windows and the only reason we know why we are near the sea is the incessant hooting of a fog horn in the distance. Tyron was once a matinee idol star, who did not follow his career as a great actor because he made so much money being a star and has regetted it, but coming from a poor immigrant family money is the most important thing in his life – having it, not spending it. He met his wife while touring and she was swept off her feet, but when one of their children was born his meanness led to a cheap doctor, to complications and to her becoming addicted to morphine which had been described by the cheap doctor. She is freshly back from a spell in a clinic for treatment and Tyrone and their two sons are worried about how she is coping and whether she will relapse into addiction. But they too have their problems. The elder son is a drunkard, the younger one, as a result of his father’s meanness over the choice of doctor when he was born, suffers from consumption.

Cox makes quite clear that he does love his wife, but that he is unable to spend money on anything – there is a moment when he turns out the lights in the chandelier by climbing first on a chair and then onto the table that stands in the middle of the sparsely furnished room which is breath taking. Somehow it shows how driven Tyrone is. He is a monster but he is capable of love. Patricia Clarkson matches him as a less spectral than usual Mary who remembers her youth, how how she dreamt of being a concert pianist, how all that was forgotten as she became a wife who toured with him, and best of all there combined in the scene with the family maid, as she realises she will relapse. Somehow or other Cox and his sons come to terms with the life they have been fated to live and Daryl McCornmack as James junior and Laurie Kynaston as Edmund rise to the challenges as their turn comes to dominate a scene. It is a very long journey indeed, but a rewarding one which manages to find fresh things in a play which has been mined by many actors.

Cast

Brian Cox - James Tyrone.

Patricia Clarkson –Mary Tyrone.

Daryl McCormack – James Tyrone.

Laurie Kynqwton – Edmund Tyrone.

Louisa Harland – Cathleen.

Creatives

Director – Jeremy Herrin.

Set & Costume Designer – Lizzie Clachan.

Lighting – Jack Knowles.

Original Music & Sound – Tom Gibbons.

Voice & Dialiect – Hazel Holder,

Movement - Polly Bennett.

Fight – Rachid Sabiti.