It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years since the first staging of “Long Day’s Journey into Night.”
Seizing on the anniversary date, Mountain View’s Pear Avenue Theatre opened the poignantly tragic Eugene O’Neill drama last weekend for a short, one-month run.
The play, which O’Neill based on his own traumatic childhood, relies heavily on emotion — which is why I wish the Pear Avenue cast focused on it more. Helmed by local director Jeanie Forte (who also writes theater reviews for the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice’s sister paper), this production sometimes feels like a cold reading, with the actors showing us only glimpses of their characters’ souls. As a result, O’Neill’s beautiful words don’t always rise to their full potential.
The five-member cast — stalking around the tiny black-box theater set, which was nicely designed by Forte — falls prey to out-of-place pauses, odd breaks in dialogue and some poorly conceived staging choices, throwing the action off balance. For example: having actors actually sit in the audience and recite lines. While the goal of theater is all about finding a connection with the audience, this is a bit over the top.
“Journey” is O’Neill’s tour de force, a raw piece of work that cuts to the very core of the troubled playwright. Because the script was so deeply personal, O’Neill forbade its release until after his death.
It is the story of the Tyrone family (i.e. the O’Neill family). The mother, Mary, is a drug addict. The eldest son, Jamie, is an alcoholic. The father, James, is a shell of a man, who has problems expressing his fears — and his love. And young Edmund Tyrone, the baby of this bumbling brood, is the family nexus. Sickly and poetic, Edmund — an image of O’Neill himself — is the one holding his family together, but he is also helping to tear them apart.
His was a difficult birth, and Mary blames Edmund for hooking her on the drugs. So does the rest of the family. Although it’s never expressly stated to him, Edmund is aware of his station in life. And while he never expressly states it aloud, he resents the position he’s in.
As Mary Tyrone, Diane Tasca walks around, quite literally, with her eyes closed. At first it seems as if she does it because she’s having trouble remembering what she’s supposed to be saying. It was only after the second intermission (why there are two in a three-hour show is baffling) that I realized this is her interpretation of being strung-out.
John Russell, as Edmund, gives us some stirring moments, particularly towards the end. I wish he could have kept it up for the entire show. Instead he spends much of his stage time sitting around with an angry pout on his face. A bit more emotional diversity was in order. Tom Ammon as James and Eric Rice as Jamie also show a lot of potential, but to me their characters just didn’t seem to be fully fleshed out.
My hope is that the production’s short field trip to Tao House in Danville — they’re performing the play there from Oct. 6 to Oct. 8 — serves as inspiration. Tao House is the place where “Journey” was written (O’Neill finished the play in 1941), and is the perfect spot to honor the play’s 50th year.
INFORMATION:
What: Pear Avenue Theatre presents “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” by Eugene O’Neill
Where: Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear Ave., Unit K, Mountain View. (The show will run at Tao House in Danville Oct. 6-8.)
When: Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., through Oct. 22
Cost: $10-$25
Contact: Call (650) 254-1148 or visit www.thepear.org for more information
