BWW Reviews: LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT Brings A Classic Play To Life Once More

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Thursday 19th March 2015

It has been thirty years since Eugene O'Neill's landmark 'realist' play, Long Days Journey Into Night, was last performed in Adelaide. The two young men who played the roles of the Tyrone sons, Jamie and Edmund, in that production are behind this production, with Rob Croser directing and David Roach this time playing the father, James Tyrone. Independent Theatre is staging this production at the Goodwood Institute with Bronwyn Ruciak as the mother, Mary, Benji Riggs as the consumptive Edmund, and Angus Henderson as his older brother, Jamie. Heather McNab plays Cathleen, their maid. The other two original cast members, Rosie Johnston and Allen Munn, were in the audience.

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 - November 27, 1953) based the play on his own family. His father, James O'Neill, was an Irish immigrant actor who found himself caught in a trap of his own making, playing the same role for years, the Count of Monte Cristo, in a play that he bought for his sole use, meaning that nobody considered him for other roles. He was also a miser, keeping tight rein on his spending, with his income falling when the play had finally run its course and audiences waned.

His mother, Mary Ellen Quinlan, also of Irish descent, was addicted to morphine, and his brother, Jamie, was an alcoholic, who drank himself to death at the age of 45. Eugene, himself, spent some time in a sanatorium between 1912 and 1913 recovering from tuberculosis contracted while working on sailing ships, and was also a heavy drinker. His play is set in 1912 during one August day, between 8:30am and midnight, which was the period just before he went into the sanatorium. In other words, the only change is in the surname of his characters from O'Neill to Tyrone, and in his character from Eugene to Edmund.

This play was not supposed to be published until 25 years after his death, but his third wife, Carlotta, ignored his wishes and published it in 1956. He was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1957. It is considered to be his finest play, and one of the greatest of all American plays. It is no surprise that the company wanted to stage it but, equally, it is easy to see why it is seldom performed. It is such a powerful piece that the demands on the actors are such that it is doomed to failure unless some exceptional performers and a sensitive director can be found. Independent Theatre found them.

Independent's Artistic Director, Rob Croser, has directed more large scale and complex productions than just about anybody in Adelaide, ranging from plays that he his written himself based on classic books, to brand new works by new and established playwrights, to classic plays by the great names. He brings all of that experience to bear on this work, which he has been hoping to stage for years. He knows full well that the right cast is essential and his long time collaborator, David Roach, who has played many, many great roles, was an obvious choice for James Tyrone. The two also combined their ideas and came up with a set that you could walk into and feel at home.

A lot of work had gone into ensuring the authenticity of a 1912 home and furniture, as well as the costumes, which were courtesy of Sandra Davis. With an entire day passing, Matt Marciniak's carefully designed lighting is vitally important in creating the correct effects for showing that passing of time. After that, it is all up to the actors, under Croser's incisive direction.

David Roach gives one of his best performances as James Tyrone, the dysfunctional head of a dysfunctional family. One moment James is arguing with Jamie, the next he is berating Edmund, and then he is gently encouraging Mary and trying to bolster her confidence. James changes in a moment, becoming a different version of himself with each change in circumstance depending to whom he is talking. He flares up, rants, and immediately apologises. He is a complex man at the end of his tether, collapsing under the strain of his wife's succumbing, once again, to her addiction, the alcoholism of one son, and his other son's tuberculosis. Roach takes this complexity and turns it all into a three dimensional character who is one moment loathsome and bullying, the next he is a figure of fun at the hands of his sons, and then he becomes a pathetic creature deserving of our pity. Roach gives a most remarkable and all too believable performance in the role.

Bronwyn Ruciak is outstanding as the morphine addicted Mary Tyrone. She takes us through Mary's denials, cover-ups, lies, devious attainment and concealment of the drug and, most importantly, the gradual changes during the day as her injections take hold of her. The further the play advances the more Ruciak allows Mary to slip into another world, that of her past, her life at the convent where she considered becoming a nun, and was praised by the sisters for her piano playing. Occasionally Mary has moments of lucidity, than vanishes again into the past. Ruciak conveys the impression of these two states so well, drifting between the two and on every return to the past she manages to seem ever further away, the light progressively fading from her eyes, in a stunning performance.

Benji Riggs, is the badly damaged Edmund, the sensitive poet, watching his family disintegrating, being torn apart by all that he sees occurring around him, especially his mother's return to taking morphine to get away from her disappointment with her life, whilst also struggling with his own ill health. Riggs brings a sympathetic reading to the role, presenting a young man who tries to retreat into reading poets, such as Baudelaire, and writing his own poems, when things become too much for him to handle. Riggs gives a finely balanced performance, offering a fragility from which a hidden strength sometimes surfaces, momentarily.

Angus Henderson plays Jamie, ten years older than Edmund and a jaded alcoholic. Henderson's characterisation suggest an inner anger and frustration that simply doesn't ease, but is always there nagging at him, sometimes just below the surface, barely under control, and occasionally erupting in angry outbursts. He makes a convincing drunk, which is an enjoyable change from the overacting usually encountered when drunkenness has to be portrayed, and his confession in his drunken state is delivered with great skill.

Heather McNab, who is in her final year of high school, takes on her second role with the company as Cathleen, the Irish maid. She brings a touch of naivety to her character, allowing us to accept that she really thinks that the prescription she is asked to take to the chemist is for the arthritis in Mary's hands.

This is a big start to Independent Theatre's 2015 season, and a rare chance for Adelaide audiences to see this landmark play performed. Booking as quickly as possible, though, is very sound advice.

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