Eugene O'Neil's "Long Day's Journey Into Night"

Every month I will write about one Shakespeare play and one non-Shakespearean play. This month's non-Shakespearean play is Eugene O'Neil's "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

As always I try to find a way to write about something without giving away the plot. Most of the works I write about are the ones I want everybody to read.

I recently saw a production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," a drama about a dysfunctional family. Not long after I read O'Neil's "Long Day" and found that the two plays bare some similarity: both plays are set in a period of one day, they are about a family wherein its members are troubled by personal guilts that plague their relationships with one another. The difference, however, is that Miller's play has a resolution; there is a point of explosion in which the tension that has been building up climaxes; O'Neil's work offers no such thing.

This one day in the life of the Tyrone family is full of revelations; each member of the family lets us see the skeleton in their closet. I wonder if a material like this makes for a good theatrical experience. Imagine sitting through an intense tragedy wherein a whole lot of serious problems are introduced with absolutely no resolution--that doesn't sound like a pleasant evening at the theater, does it? As we get to know each member of the family better, we wonder how they could possibly live together still. Each member blames themselves for the tragedy of another, and they also blame others for their own tragedy. They must really love each other to be able to live together still, but it is also clear that they also have an intense hatred for each other.

Each character has his or her own dream, what they want their lives to be like, but those dreams had become impossible because of their preexisting life. Mary Tyrone, for example, longs for the days when she was a schoolgirl in a convent. She believed that she could have been a concert pianist or a nun, and that those things would have been better than what she had become. She blames her marriage with James for depriving her of those opportunities.

As I said before, there is no climax. The characters simply tell us their problems, and they have just finished their stories by the time the play ends. One can only imagine what would happen to the family next; are they going to kill each other? Maybe they will kill themselves. Or maybe they will continue living their lives in misery.

With extensive descriptions, the play almost reads like a novel. O'Neil, one of the most prominent American playwrights, had intended for this play to be published 25 years after his death. (It was in fact published only 3 years later, with permission of his wife Carlotta, to whom the play is dedicated.) Perhaps he didn't mean for it to be performed. It certainly is a good read; the characterization of these people is both heartfelt and powerful. It might actually make you appreciate your family more.