10 Questions About…

On Wednesday, we went to see A Long Day’s Journey into Night – by Eugene O’Neill. It’s actually an auto-biographical work.

The mother is a “dope fiend”; apparently she became addicted to morphine after Eugene was born. In the play we know that she has issues and that she’s out of some kind of rehab but we don’t know about the addiction for a while.

The father is a stingy drinker. Apparently he was a big famous actor, but now he just owns a lot of land but won’t spend any of his money on himself or his family.

The brother is also an actor – but especially in the chunk of life we see – he’s a ne’er do well who also drinks too much.

Eugene (called Edmond in the play) is brooding and is about to hear that he has consumption and will be sent to a sanatorium. His grandfather and others died of consumption. (Eugene doesn’t actually die of it – but we don’t know that during the play. Well people who are smarter than I am abotu Eugene O’Neill probably know it, but I didn’t.)

Pretty much the story takes off from there. The play was done by DRUID company, out of Galway. (We saw their marathon production of Synge shows right after the new Guthrie Theater opened.) The Father was played by James Cromwell – most notable to me as the boyfriend of the mom on Six Feet Under.

When the play was good it was very good. The brother does a great scene where he tries to explain to his brother that he loves and hates him. The mother is very good especially at the beginning.

Most notably the play was 4.5 hours. And in the words of the immortal Bob Uecker – that’s 9 Gillian’s Islands to you and me!