Set in 1912, 'Long Day’s Journey Into Night' still feels like a contemporary drama

Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is one of America’s classic plays. It takes place on one long day in 1912, in the summer home of a family falling apart. O’Neill based the characters on his own family. His mother was addicted to painkillers, and his father and older brother suffered from alcoholism. O’Neill didn’t want the play produced when he was alive and it debuted on Broadway in 1956, three years after he died. Since then, “Long Day’s Journey” has been produced countless times. Now it’s on stage in L.A.


Jeremy Irons as James Tyrone and Lesley Manville as Mary Tyrone.
Credit: Lawrence K. Ho.


Left to right: Matthew Beard (Edmund Tyrone), Lesley Manville (Mary Tyrone),
Jeremy Irons (James Tyrone), and Rory Keenan (James Tyrone Jr). Credit: Lawrence K. Ho.


Leslie Manville and Jeremy Irons at KCRW. Photo by Amy Ta.