Long Day's Journey Into Night (1996)

Long Day’s Journey Into Night is the autobiographical masterpiece of America’s preeminent playwright, Eugene O’Neill. The promise and depth of his legacy is nowhere more apparent than in this extraordinary psychological epic that follows the Tyrone family through the dark night of its collective, tortured soul. British actress Claire Bloom rejoined the A.R.T. Company in the role of Mary Tyrone, a tour-de-force portrait based on O’Neill’s own morphine-addicted mother.

The action takes place in 1912 at the Tyrone family’s Connecticut summer home.  Over the course of a long, agonizing August day, James and his two sons use booze to calm their growing anxiety over Edmund’s tuberculosis and Mary’s worsening morphine addiction.  As the night wears on, they try desperately to deal with their own complicated feelings of guide, rage, love, and disappointment in each other and themselves.