Long Day’s Journey Into Night: a grand masterpiece and an ordinary family drama

Eugene O’Neill’s mighty drama, returning to the West End with Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson, has drawn generations of stage greats and casts its spell with a story we can all recognise

How to approach Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night? “At our very first reading,” wrote Michael Blakemore, who directed a famous National Theatre production in 1971, “I encouraged the cast not to regard the play as some great tragic Everest waiting to be climbed.” Those are wise words that I hope Jeremy Herrin, directing a new production with Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson, opening at Wyndham’s theatre in London, takes to heart.

Of course, it is a great play. But, having seen half a dozen productions, I would suggest that it works best when you realise that, within a classical structure, it contains all the anguish of family life. You could argue that O’Neill’s characters are exceptional: the father is a miserly actor who has wasted his potential, his wife is a morphine addict and their elder and younger sons are, respectively, a cynical barfly and a consumptive poet. But Blakemore again hits the nail on the head when, in his book Stage Blood, he praises the play’s democracy of spirit and claims that all you need to understand it is “the experience of being a member of a family”.