Review: City Theatre’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night

They were all in love with dying, and they’re showing it in Texas

Reviewed by Cat McCarrey, Fri., Aug. 2, 2024

(l -r): Jacob Schatz as Jamie, Cat Cardenas as Cathleen, Kara Bliss as Mary, Ty McLeod as Edmund, Scott Poppaw as James (courtesy of City Theatre)

Leo Tolstoy famously started his magnum opus of relationships and belief, Anna Karenina, extolling that “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Such is Eugene O’Neill’s Tyrone family. Their unhappiness may be as unique as Tolstoy’s Karenins and Levins, but is still intensely recognizable.

City Theatre has wanted to perform Long Day’s Journey Into Night for 18 years. It's a towering feat from O'Neill, considered the first world-class American playwright. Journey is based on his own family: the erstwhile actor father, the morphine addicted mother, the drunken lout brother, even his own stand-in through the consumptive younger brother. The semi-autobiographical elements show art as a mirror, a way through the labyrinth of one's own life. Who knows what parts of these tortured conversations are real or not. (For myself, I fully believe O'Neill's own father told him, "You have a poet in you, but it's a damned morbid one," just as the elder James Tyrone tells young Edmund.) But the raw edges of sorrow are as honest as any fiction.

We follow the fictional Tyrone family over the course of a day at their summer home, based on the O’Neills’ very real Monte Cristo Cottage in Connecticut. It opens with parents James (Scott Poppaw) and Mary (Kara Bliss) awakening with smiles and the appearance of humor, but there’s a dark undercurrent. They quickly become more on edge with the entrance of their sons Jamie (Jacob Schatz) and Edmund (Ty McLeod). Laughter rings false as they all start noticing secret meanings in the most innocuous statements. A quick joke becomes James observing that the joke is “always on the old man.” Jamie notes that this family seems to “forget everything and face nothing.” They quickly devolve into arguments nominally about money and ambition, but really about what they give and owe each other.

Journey is an acting challenge. It’s no wonder City Theatre has waited so long to tackle the masterpiece. Performers have to show the weight of a family. They need to make years of history feel present and oppressive. And they have to do it all while monologuing in a way that at least appears somewhat off-the-cuff and natural, as though all these bubbling resentments are finally, finally, finding their way to the surface. Luckily, this cast achieves these lofty aims. It’s emotionally wringing and worth watching them delve into their deepest regrets. To have married differently. To have chosen other paths. To have never even existed.

They’re aided by tense direction from Karen Sneed. Her blocking and the actors’ posture choices add implied years to the Tyrone family’s history. Bliss’ Mary slowly reveals her addiction and shame, hiding behind a jocular mask that can fall to desolation in a moment. The warmth in her face is so endearing that her bitter tirades against the nomadic acting life and lack of home hurt tenfold. Poppaw’s sonorous tones as aged actor James convinces us of his charismatic gravitas. He also can’t help but fight with Schatz’s Jamie, who begins the play with a lackadaisical sneer. Schatz then masterfully sinks into a sloppy drunk, gradually revealing a sharp “adder’s tongue,” cruelly lashing out while erratically weeping. As Edmund, McLeod adopts a resigned slouch to observe them all, the writer who still blames himself for all the family strife. Cathleen the maid is almost a comic relief character, but Cat Cardenas portrays a nervous edge as she witnesses these moments of self-loathing. It’s an intensive character study, and these actors are feasting.

Now, Long Day’s Journey Into Night delivers everything the title promises. The plot goes from morning to the wee hours of the night. And yes – the play is long. Two intermissions long. However, some journeys are worth the investment of time. Sure, you can watch a voiceover of an armchair therapist dissecting toxic family dynamics on TikTok in 90 seconds or less. But is that enough to make the lessons resonate?

There’s a cathartic beauty in examining the rawest, ugliest parts of our existence. This is a miserable day with a miserable family, but it cuts straight to the heart. Their fights are cyclical – if we hear phrases repeated so much in this single day, imagine a lifetime of them – but they’re riveting. We keep hoping for a breakthrough. The missteps and missed opportunities haunt the audience as much as they do the Tyrones, an emotional and artistic payoff that would be impossible without building up repetitive litanies of misery.