THEATRE: LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
Long Day’s Journey into Night was American playwright Eugene O’Neill’s masterwork – it earnt him a posthumous Pulitzer in 1957 and silver screen immortality via legendary director Sidney Lumet and throaty starlet Katherine Hepburn in 1962. In 2010 it is to undergo another transformation at the hands of Sydney Theatre Company’s Andrew Upton, although whether this is will bolster or flatline the production’s fame is yet to be seen.
Between 8.30pm and midnight in a turn-of-the-century Connecticut holiday home, we witness the unravelling of a tightly-knit family as the harmful tug of addiction, confounded expectations and generational miscommunication overwhelms them. It is deeply autobiographical, and O’Neill left firm instructions that the play was not to be performed until 25 years after his death. Those instructions were skirted a mere three years later.
“It’s an honest appraisal of his family. He leaves no rock unturned – and it’s very exposing,” says Luke Mullins, who plays the ‘Eugene’ stand-in, Edmund Tyrone. “A lot of people who knew the family were quite shocked by the revelations,” – which included morphine addiction, mistresses, suicides and alcoholism.
The Irish servant girl, the only on-stage character who is not part of the family, represents the outside world. “She’s … just off the boat. Full of life and vitality,” says Mullins. “A bit like Shakespeare’s fool, she’s there to break the tension,” agrees Emily Russell, who plays Cathleen. She stands at the crux of new and old world – the family’s Irish roots and their American future. Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton have said of the piece, “[It] bears witness to the worm in the apple of the new world.” It’s a distinctly American dilemma. How did this translate to an Australian stage? “It has cultural baggage for them,” says Mullins, “but for us, it doesn’t come with the same baggage so it has been really interesting having a transatlantic cast working on it … from both angles.”
After its Sydney staging, the show will be hosted by Portland, Oregon – another tentacle of the STC’s increased international presence. As a genuine co-production – cast members include acclaimed American actor William Hurt as the father – according to Mullins it’s the perfect way to take an Australian perspective to foreign shores. Would we be better off touring homebred stories? “I understand that point of view but I think that at this stage, it’s such a hard thing,” muses Mullins, “when you forge those relationships the conversation becomes more complex.”
Jul 3-Aug 1, Sydney Theatre Company, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, $40-90, 9250 1777, sydneytheatre.com.au
