Some of my favorite local arts writers are picking apart Artist Rep's A Long Day's Journey into Night over at Arts Dispatch—Barry Johnson's got a post up surveying local reactions to the show, and there are some good points being made in the comments:
Mighty Toy Cannon: My own thinking has been about: (a) The play itself as a work of theater; and, (b) this production and the craft behind it. Which is to say, I've been engaged in a technical analysis, rather than contemplating the play's themes or its emotional content. Perhaps my heart is too calcified and my mind is too jaded, but the Tyrone family's bitter cycle of regrets and recriminations did not move me. I wasn't shocked. I didn't leave with any new revelations about myself, family dynamics or humanity. I left the theater thinking about the production rather than the ideas embedded in the play. That's all okay, because there's plenty to mull over, but I wonder how it works as theater and as storytelling for an audience member who isn't steeped in theater, and who isn't attending with preconceived ideas and the foreknowledge that it is The Greatest American Play Ever Written. Does it have an "enduring place in the American theater canon" because it is a museum piece worthy of study? Or does it still have relevance to a contemporary audience?Barry Johnson: I wasn't moved by the family dynamic so much, the family history and psychology, as by the idea of O'Neill himself struggling with this material, struggling with his own difficult view of the world, trying to make sense of the world through different eyeballs, encountering those stubborn impenetrable spots — in himself, other people, the world. And then maybe by his compassion for us, stuck just as he is with problems we can size up let alone solve.
There are a few comments on my review of the show, as well—people are talking about this one. Johnson, who runs Art Scatter, is basically obsessed with it; Ross McKeen, AKA Mighty Toy Cannon, has been grappling with the show on Twitter and in blog comments; I've had several people give me shit for "panning" William Hurt.
MTC's question as to to the ongoing relevance of the script is what I wrestled with when I wrote my review—for all that I know I am supposed to revere this show, for all that I studied it in school as one of the great works, I was completely unable to engage with Artist Rep's production: emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically. (I also wonder, too, if people are talking about it because it is such a powerful show, love it or hate it, and that is how we know it is art; or if people are talking about it because they feel like they should have liked it, and now feel the need to explain why they didn't—but that is probably just snark.) I find the script choked with particulars, too overrun with weird plot details (morphine addict mom! Dead baby!) for any every-unhappy-family themes to resonate.
Those are personal issue between me and the canon, I guess; problems specific to this production include truly weird character choices from Mr. Hurt (I could not understand 30% of what he said. Actors project.), and a set design that made zero sense to me. I didn't have room to take on production design in my review: Why set an intimate family drama on such a self-consciously stagey set? Low slung concrete slabs gave the set a claustrophobic feel, too be sure, but it's not like this show is in danger of not feeling weighty enough. Why let us see the actors, sitting in the wings? I found it disengaging, and I was already pretty disengaged. I would love to hear further thoughts on the set, if anyone has them—it was pretty, but I couldn't figure out why those choices were made—as well as the production as a whole. Did anybody looooove it?