Long Day's Journey into Night

"What you do doubt is that they are members of the same family, bound by blood ties that will ultimately strangle them. That, unfortunately, is an omission that can make 'Long Day’s Journey' feel even longer than it is…Mr. Byrne gives a beautiful performance — a haunted and haunting incarnation of fraying majesty…His character, an emblem of squandered potential, paradoxically turns out to provide this disjunctive production with its one memorable instance of great potential fulfilled." Full Review

“Lange applies a relatively light touch here...The show simmers at a low, but effective, boil. It’s striking to consider how minimal it is and how epic it feels...Byrne fares best whenever he’s opposite Lange...Still the stage belongs to Shannon and especially Lange, who slowly builds to Mary’s operatic aria of desperation — few actors can express vulnerability so achingly. You don’t need shock tactics to rivet an audience in its seats.” Full Review

"As staged by Jonathan Kent, the outstanding revival has a lighter tone and softer edges that, paradoxically, impart a deeper sorrow onto this classic domestic tragedy...Lange brings both grace and gravity to Mary’s futile efforts to deny reality…Byrne’s performance as James Tyrone, Sr., is quietly commanding…Michael Shannon delivers a strong performance as Jamie…As Edmund, the focus of so much of the family angst on this terrible, terrible day, John Gallagher, Jr., is likely just miscast." Full Review

"Jessica Lange brings stunning colors to the role of a woman clawing her way through fog. You can’t take your eyes off her…The other actors orbit around Lange’s blazing star turn in painfully believable patterns of resignation...Although 'Long Day’s Journey' is nearly four hours long, and deals centrally with stasis it passes quickly...You’re grateful for every minute you get to spend in the beautiful, miserable company of a family whose abiding devotion is hopeless." Full Review

"A magnificent production…Director Jonathan Kent and an extraordinary cast led by Jessica Lange and Gabriel Byrne have achieved a masterful staging of the undisputed classic…It's Shannon, though, with a growling New York accent, who torches the stage in a blistering fourth-act tour de force…Kent's production runs three hours and forty-five minutes, yet his nimble pacing mostly dissolves all sense of time right through to the last word." Full Review

"An above-average—but merely 'above-average'—revival...Shannon and Lange, with a partial victory by Byrne, are not quite enough. John Gallagher, Jr simply doesn’t work out as stand-in for the playwright...Even so, this is a welcome opportunity to see the play, and the chance to see a top-flight performance by Jessica Lange. But when you leave 'Long Day' enthusing about the actress playing Mary Tyrone—well, that doesn’t seem to be where O’Neill was heading." Full Review

"If Jonathan Kent’s production sometimes suffers from low spirits and the script – with its repeated exclamations, recriminations and long quotations – can sound confoundingly circular, it remains a visceral and poetic evocation of familial tenderness and injury…At its best moments – and there are many – this 'Long Day’s Journey Into Night' shows us life as it is and also the clarity and fog, the darkness and light, that surround it." Full Review

"For those who saw the 2003 Broadway production, the new production is likely to feel in some ways disappointing. All three men in the current production are terrific actors, who have done better work elsewhere...Lange makes Mary the center of attention for the audience as well. She is not just a fading ethereal figure, but a robust woman whose entire life unfolds before us—alternatively innocent, skittish, coquettish, sneering, full-out furious, resigned. It’s a memorable performance." Full Review

“I've seen several fine productions of ‘Long Day's Journey’, but never have the characters' savage emotions percolated so close to the surface....At the American Airlines these nights, the characters' fury is red hot, their sorrows so corrosive that of course they grab desperately at anything to dull the pain. This may or may not be the best version I've seen, but it is certainly the most immediate. These Tyrones know where each other's scar tissue is, and they aren't afraid to probe it.” Full Review

"Kent's starry production, led by a transfixing Jessica Lange, invites us to see reflections of our own closest relationships in the haunted Tyrones…Shannon puts such a unique spin on so much of his dialogue that the play's final act takes on invigorating new life…But the production belongs to Lange…Lange inhabits those unearthly spaces with fragility but also with the fierce narcissism and cunning of the addict." Full Review

"A strong revival of the four-hour tragedy staged by English director Jonathan Kent and led by a powerful quartet of actors…This is an extremely difficult play to pull off, relying on rich prose instead of overt action and featuring miserable characters basking in overwhelming despair. The performances here are exceptional all around, but the production is likely to grow smoother and more engrossing as the run continues. The stylized and spare set design is distracting and looks incomplete." Full Review

"You're catapulted on less of a roller-coaster ride of feeling than is sometimes the case, and because that can be a major source of exhilaration, the final product may not satisfy everyone. But everything is here and, within these strictures, just about everything works. This is especially true of Lange, who's superb as Mary...It's a testament to both the play and Kent's treatment of it that these stumbles cannot stop this production from landing with full hurricane force." Full Review

"Even a perfectly tuned production can be an endurance test. Performances aren’t all equal in Jonathan Kent’s staging...Jessica Lange maximizes her meaty role’s potential…And when she’s not onstage, Lange is missed. Actors playing the Tyrone men—each in love with the bottle—have varying degrees of success. As the tightwad James, Gabriel Byrne has the presence of a matinee idol...John Gallagher, Jr., fails to summon much grace or gravity." Full Review

"The revival is transfixing. It may sound like no fun at all to spend nearly four hours with the Tyrone family, but by the time this journey was done, I was completely given over to the dark and dangerous spell of O’Neill’s masterpiece. It was as though I was seeing it for the first time. This would have been impossible without one of the rarest convergences on Broadway: an all-star cast and director that works as well on stage as they promised on paper." Full Review

"Revisiting the unhappily chained together by their familial bonds Tyrones has enthralled me again and again. Happily, that was the case with my latest visit...At almost four hours it's long, but somehow never too long...Lange's current portrayal is one of the best and most moving I've seen...When she makes her final descent down the cottage's steep staircase carrying her treasured wedding dress, it's gut-wrenching...Fortunately the other actors impressively support Ms. Lange." Full Review

"The temptation is to talk all day and into the night about Jessica Lange as Mary Tyrone...This really is, with perhaps one miscalculation, a stunning revival of this churning family exorcism...Nothing gets in the way of O’Neill’s emotional rhythms, which come in waves and mood swings of lumbering honesty, outbursts and apologies, litanies of accusation and self-recrimination. Everyone has betrayed everyone else in this great play, but O’Neill makes us believe in them all." Full Review

"Byrne’s portrayal stands out for its understatement…Under Jonathan Kent’s direction, Byrne and Lange handle the sharp changes in tone adeptly to create a mesmerizing dance of death… Kent is not as fortunate with Gallagher. Those shifts are jarring, sometimes risible, when he attempts them…Even though Shannon tries to recede into the background, his immense presence pulls focus…He’s a force of nature, and Byrne’s James Tyrone, especially, could never be his father." Full Review

"Not only has director Jonathan Kent assembled such a dynamic cast and achieved titanic performances from them, he has staged everything with geometric preciseness…For a play of such length the pace is as swift as possible utilizing overlapping dialogue and overall seamlessness…The Tyrones’ unhappiness is specific yet timelessly universal. That’s why the play enduringly resonates and this revival magnificently affirms that." Full Review

"Brevity and subtlety are not among O’Neill’s strengths…The fourth and final act seemed endless...The first problem for me was that Shannon is so much bigger than Byrne that he literally and figuratively overshadows him. In a restrained performance, Byrne is not convincing as a former matinee idol. Lange’s Mary, on the other hand, is much too theatrical for my taste...Jonathan Kent’s direction does not produce a unity of approach from the actors. " Full Review

“Jessica Lange gives one of the most transcendent stage performances seen in years...What this production, beautifully directed by Jonathan Kent, lets you see is the deep love that's shared in American drama's most famous dysfunctional family...The acting company isn't perfect. Gallagher is a bit too modern, and the mostly very good Shannon is occasionally an awkward fit...Byrne, though, makes a compelling James, an ideal companion for Lange's haunted Mary.” Full Review

"Roundabout’s first-rate take on O’Neill’s 'Long Day’s Journey'…Director Jonathan Kent guides the simple and elegant, nearly 4-hour-long production…Leads Lange and Byrne share an effortless chemistry…Lange is magnetic as the family matriarch…This is a solid production of a canonical play. The actors inhabit their characters with as much truth as can be mustered: Lange, for one, seems so immersed that we feel as if we were watching some real Mary Tyrone.” Full Review

"Jessica Lange has here written the dictionary on various forms of nuanced, nervous laughter, fluttering hands, darting eyes, and erratic vocal change. The actress embodies power, desperation, and fragility with equal conviction…Much of this play has the Tyrone family staring at each other or brooding in a corner. There’s also a great deal of anxious, aimless walking and hapless gesturing. Kent successfully holds tension and guides focus during these evocative parentheses." Full Review

"I felt nothing. I wasn’t moved, not once, either to laughter or tears...Part of the problem is that the actors have been allowed to get weepy pretty often, and we are unconstrained to join them, but a larger part of the problem is the director’s failure to connect them, in any meaningful way, or to pull them together into any semblance of a real family. With the exception of John Gallagher Jr., the actors do fine individually, but they are acting in their own vacuums." Full Review

"Jonathan Kent’s immaculate production starring Jessica Lange leading a glorious ensemble, is riveting from start to finish…Our hearts bleed for Lange's Mary Tyrone...She is hauntingly radiant. The beauty of this production is the perfect balance - both in the writing and performances - that speaks to the emotional interdependence defining so many American families. Like the scarred Tyrones, we fight, we cry, we love and amid all the sadness, we manage to survive." Full Review

"The major issue with this production is precisely that it allows each of the main actors to act in their own unique little world. When the four leads are onstage, it’s as if we’re watching four elaborate performances trapped within individual snowglobes…If director Kent’s intention was precisely to alienate each of the Tyrone family members as further apart as he could, he forgot that there would eventually be an audience having to endure this disjointed exercise." Full Review