Using the latest critical edition of Eugene O’Neill’s major play, American Stage presents a production true to his words and their dramatic impact. Never do Director Brendon Fox and his cast ever flag in their dedication to the spirit of the work. Despite its length, Long Day’s Journey into Night is not tiring, always engaging. The play begins with sturdy James Keegan as commanding James Tyrone almost swaggering toward wife Mary (Janis Stevens, fragile but trying to hide it). It’s after breakfast and they’ve established their space on the parlor table rug. But James strides through the length of the house, definitely heading it (as he will all day). He reveals his conceit, miserly ways, and gambles on real estate to make a fortune that eludes him. She hates his watching her, thinking she may be slipping back into her illness, but she offers the excuse of a foghorn invading her sleep. Both Tyrones unhappily—for different reasons—hear son Jamie in the dining room and their younger Edmund, who’s coughing. When Billy Finn’s Jamie enters, he’s clearly a ne’er-do-well, dissipated but not lacking charm except to his father. Mary’s concern for Edmund’s health is substantiated by Josh Odsess-Rubin’s portrayal. He needs to go to a good sanitarium in conflict with his father’s willingness to pay only for an inferior state institution. This parallels the father’s having had a cheap quack treat Mary when she had a difficult delivery of Edmund. It started her on opioids. Stevens is marvelously subtle in transitioning each stage in Mary’s relapse. But Mary’s more like James as she keeps returning to that delivery (which now pains Edmund), James’s pecuniary dealings and behavior, and her hatred of staying in so many awful hotels on his acting tours that led to his settling for this seaside cottage “home.” Finn playing Jamie’s better moments with his brother acts as relief. HIs charm doesn’t extend, though, to his ever-growing volatile behaviors toward everyone else. Eugene O’Neill obviously raised sympathy for Edmund, who represents the writer, and actually extended his supposedly autobiographical goodness and unfairly chastised his mother, who eventually conquered her addiction. O’Neill would have approved of Josh Odsess-Rubin’s always favorable characterization of Edmund. Rose Hahn is a creditable Cathleen, the maid who isn’t above critiquing the habits of her employers. She complains easily and only does the work she has to do. She’s the only one in the house who humors Mary, though it may be from liking her or even just being ignorant. She helps the boys by watering the before-meals whiskey bottle after pouring for them—and herself—more than James would ration to them. If there is a problem with the production, it’s the expansive set with a great deal of space that’s mainly used for walking away from the central table. An enclosed front porch is hardly used, and an inset room with stairs leading up to the bedrooms seems mostly for effect. When the stairway’s backlit to show Mary’s last descent, it seems to clash with the overall style of the play. The front room window isn’t used to show much outside (even with lots of talk about the sea) and, besides the main table and chairs, there’s only one chair with a little table next to it for sitting in the main room. No conversational corner. Costumes suit each character well. The important lights go on, off, lighter, or darker as necessary and without a hitch. Props are useful, and the bust of Shakespeare over a bookcase with contents pitting James’s tastes against Eugene’s is truly telling.
