Long Day's Journey Into Night
In this soul-stirring Firebelly production of Eugene O’Neill’s
Pulitzer Prize winning, autobiographical play, Long Day’s Journey
Into Night, the ghosts of the past ebb and flow like the tides.
Sounds of the sea draw us into a parlor of faded elegance that serves as
a sitting room cluttered with books and dominated by a round, claw-foot
Victorian table to suggest it is 1912.
Maintaining most of the confessional, set-piece soliloquies, director
Kathi Gollwitzer has trimmed the text from four-and-a-half-hours to
three, highlighting the poetic passages of great beauty without
sacrificing the powerful impact. You can tell when an audience is
breathing with every word uttered. Under Gollwitzer’s firm hand at the
helm, the results from a mesmerizing ensemble of actors make a
convoluted text clear, humanized and upbeat. The journey becomes an
allegory for Everyman’s family members who open their veins and let
their recriminations from the past flow.
(Full
Review)
Firebelly's Latest Really Is a Long
Journey
The truth-in-advertising squad will have no quibbles
with Firebelly Productions' latest effort, “Long Day's Journey Into Night.”
It is long (three hours, almost on the nose) and it does chronicle a journey, in
this instance the toxic relationship of a family stuck in their downtrodden
summer home and facing all manner of woes and maladies. (Full Review)
A solid rendition of an emotionally
touching classic
Mounting Eugene O'Neill's dramatic complex of
interconnected weaknesses in a family much like the one he grew up in has got to
be both a fascinating opportunity and a daunting prospect for a company that
specializes in giving young adult performers the opportunity to face real
challenges. It is also somehow an inevitable choice, for the talent pool the
company draws from is full of actors who would just love to sink their teeth
into the characters of O'Neill's only-slightly-fictionalized portraits of his
father, mother, brother and self. (Full Review)
