Sydney Theatre Company, Artists Repertory Theatre and Commonwealth Bank present

Long Day's Journey Into Night
by Eugene O'Neill

In this magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Eugene O’Neill (Mourning Becomes Electra, Desire Under The Elms) paints a vivid and disturbing portrait of a family tormented by the past and paralysed by the prospect of the future.

Actor James Tyrone (William Hurt), his wife Mary (Robyn Nevin) and their two adult sons James and Edmund, have retreated to their Connecticut holiday house where they will be ensconced for the summer. During the course of the ‘long day’ of the play’s title this family battles to unearth, and conceal, a series of appalling truths.

Tyrone towers over the family, his endless disappointment in his sons fuelling their alcoholism and propelling a vicious rivalry between them. Against doctor’s orders, Edmund drinks with abandon, drowning his sorrows as he awaits the results of a crucial medical examination. Meanwhile all three men monitor Mary’s every move, intent on protecting her from her own terrible addiction.

Rarely staged in Australia but frequently considered O’Neill’s major masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, is a largely autobiographical work of gut-wrenching honesty and astonishing beauty. In celebration of the play’s enormous thematic and emotional landscape, this production will unfold on the grand stage of Sydney Theatre before transferring to Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon.