Theatre
Long Day's Journey into Night
Eugene O'Neill · 1941
Synopsis
One day in August 1912, in the summer house of a family on the Connecticut coast. The father, an actor made rich by a single role played throughout his life, switches off behind the others the lamps left on. The mother has recently come back from a cure, and everyone watches her. The elder son drinks and mocks. The younger coughs and they await what the doctor will say. The day passes in four acts, from breakfast to night; each accuses the others, retracts and begins again, while the fog rises from the sea and the foghorn sounds.
Context
The text was begun in 1939 in its author's Californian house, finished in the spring of 1941 and presented to his wife Carlotta on 22 July 1941; O'Neill puts his own family into it under another name. In 1945, he deposited a sealed copy with his publisher, with a ban on publishing it until twenty-five years after his death. He died in 1953; his widow, who held the rights, met with the publisher's refusal and entrusted the text to Yale, which published it in February 1956. The premiere took place the same year at the Dramaten in Stockholm, then in November on Broadway, and the play earned its author a fourth Pulitzer Prize, posthumous.
Who it is for
Four long acts, on a single set and with five characters; the full performance lasts more than four hours. Several French translations.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as his major work and a summit of American theatre; its Broadway production won the Tony Award for best play in 1957.
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