"CRITIC’S PICK...Yet there they are, prominent props in Robert O’Hara’s warp-speed Covid-era revival, which opened on Tuesday at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Far from cheapening a classic work with random relevance, they help define (or at any rate don’t get in the way of) a beautifully acted and affecting interpretation for a new age of disease and lockdown."
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"This somewhat literal approach, while clever and suggestive, is also limiting. Even with 40% of it excised, the text doesn’t quite fit the specifics of our current moment, and neither does it have its erstwhile grounding in 1912. The best parts of the production find ways to navigate this limbo, which is especially true of Marvel’s remarkable performance as Mary."
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"In the end, whether it’s a traditional revival of the play set in August 1912 that runs four hours or an experimental time-leaping vision with deep cuts to the repetitive script adding up to a 110-minute running time, special effects aren’t needed to make the drama click. As the Tyrones shatter illusions and trade regrets and accusations, a consistent tone and tight connection by the actors to their characters and each makes the story harrowing. The links forged in this Audible Theater production at times go slack."
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"Some of the second-half stumbling lies in design choices (a weird glowing skeleton projection throws things off the rails) and orchestration — O’Hara and sound designer Palmer Hefferan allow some of the actors, murmuring in contemporary cinematic style, to get too mumbly for too long. (It’s called Audible, dammit.) The root-and-branch editing also start to have an effect: O’Neill’s odd, bulky dramaturgy does have a logic, and as we move towards the ending, we start to feel all O’Hara’s cuts as a loss of mass; the original’s monumentality may have been what gave the play momentum."
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"This compressed revival of “Long Day’s Journey” is produced by Audible, a company with the admirable mission of recording its productions at off-Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theatre for millions of listeners. (Audible is owned by Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.) But the genius of O’Neill’s masterwork, I’d argue, is in that endless torrent of words, the incessant rounds of barbs and complaints and accusations the Tyrones heap on one another. An optimal “Long Day’s Journey,” even with some leavening moments, leaves you tense and devastated. It’s fatiguing because the Tyrones are exhausting. This one falls into that least satisfying of categories: irrelevant."
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"It turns out, a lot. Director Robert O'Hara has envisioned something very fresh and inspired in Audible's production at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village. It's no exaggeration to say that this production of Long Day's Journey Into Night is a stroke of genius, and it really must be seen to appreciate how startlingly well it works. This intermission-less, two-hour version (the play usually runs closer to four) is set in 2020 rather than the play's original 1912. The words are all O'Neill's, and the essential elements of the plot remain intact (a minor character, the maid Cathleen, has been cut). O'Hara and his creative team have transformed this highly personal play of familial strife into something quite new. From the Covid pandemic and its accompanying mental health issues, to the opioid crisis fueled by the Sackler family and Perdue Pharma, to racial health-care inequalities, the Tyrones become the embodiment of America's present dysfunction — its rancor, selfishness, and bickering all tearing the country to shreds. And no, it does not end happily."
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Rarely, if ever, have a director, cast, and creative team been so grimly determined about dragging a classic play, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century. It has its admirers but, to me, it proves once again that Eugene O'Neill is the most intractable of playwrights; reinterpret his works at your peril. O'Hara and company give it their all, but the strain is evident throughout; they're working at cross-purposes with the writer they claim to admire.
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"Having now seen the production, I can only say that I’m still looking forward to someday seeing Bill Camp and Elizabeth Marvel in Long Day’s Journey into Night. That’s because this rendition — being presented by Audible, which will release an audio version at a later date — isn’t so much O’Neill’s Long Day Journey as it is that of director Robert O’Hara (Slave Play). O’Hara, apparently deciding that this 20th century masterwork which posthumously won both the Tony and Pulitzer Prize isn’t quite up to snuff, has very much made it his own."
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