A Long Day’s Journey into Night
Wyndham’s Theatre, London

THAT Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey into Night is a towering masterpiece is no longer up for debate. 

Gifted to the world by the author in the 1950s — but never seen on stage by him — it’s a deeply confessional, autobiographical work that immerses us in the painful and profoundly tragic impact, not only of one family unit on its members, but also of each family member on the unit. Though the setting could not be more specific, no-one could watch this play without recognising something of their own, and every family, in its slow, deep burn and inner turmoil.

Iconic productions of the play have abounded over the years. Now it’s director Jeremy Herrin’s turn to thrill whole new generations with a detailed and passionate exposition.

No awestruck tribute, this production; no devotional obsequiousness; and no vain reimaginings. Herrin remains true to O’Neill and lets us hear him speak.

Gloomy it may be and, at three-and-a-half hours, also long as the title warns, but it penetrates truth with microscopic vision. 

And the characters are mighty, the cast formidable.

Brian Cox, as the thunderous, penny-pinching patriarch, James Tyrone, seems physically built for the role and powers through the lines much as he did in the multiaward-winning on-screen Succession.

While he grows into the role, Patricia Clarkson brings us a tour de force as his wounded, drug-addicted wife. Fragile and feminine, speaking softly and often scattily, she steals the show, her inner soul as visible to the audience as her hastily arranged hair and flowing clothes.

Yet, despite this seemingly accessible gentleness, she wholly justifies her son’s comment that “the hardest thing to take is the hard wall she builds around her.” Only once do we see her open suddenly like a glorious flower — subtle yet unmistakable — and that is when the morphine has kicked in.   

Daryl McCormack delivers an intelligent and nuanced performance as older son, James Jnr: once the great family hope, now a wastrel with untrustworthy instincts. Meanwhile, Laurie Kynaston as Edmund treads lightly through his consumption and likely death sentence to bring us another open, wounded heart. Some of the most beautiful and thrilling language of the play is spoken by Edmund, and Kynaston delivers it impeccably, as the poet his character aspires to be.

Louisa Harland as Cathleen, the one outsider we actually meet on stage, brings a welcome lightness with her Irish brogue and spiky humour. 

Lizzie Clachan’s barren, hard wood set, together with Jack Knowles’s misty and impoverished lighting and Tom Gibbons barely audible, but nerve-jangling, sounds of the sea, intensifies the impenetrable gloom, as day becomes night and the family sink without hope into the home that has never been — and never will be — a real home.   

This play is long and relentless. Modern audiences, used to sound bites, kick against this old-style, word-heavy delivery. And this may limit its appeal. But we don’t get talent like this very often. 

We should forget comparisons, sit back, and marvel.  

Runs until June 8. Box office: wyndhamstheatre.co.uk.