La Compagnie Lester McNutt en collaboration avec L'Alambic Studio Théâtre Présente
pour la deuxième annèe et à l'occasion du 50ème anniversaire de la mort de l'auteur

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

Tous les dimanches à 15 heures
du 19 octobre au 21 décembre 2003

Cette pièce (Prix Pulitzer), d'Eugene 0'Neill, écrit “avec ses larmes et son sang”, réunit les membres d’une famille attachante mais destructrice durant l’été 1912, dans leur maison au bord de la mer. Pendant que Mary plonge de plus en plus dans la morphine, et que le père et les fils s’oublient dans le whisky, l’espoir semble disparaître peu à peu et donner place au désespoir et à la résignation. Les trois premiers actes mettent en avant le refus de la réalité, avec finalement, au quatrième acte, l’acceptation des réalités brutales de la vie. Cette pièce autobiographique est considérée comme l’un des chef-d’œuvres d’Eugène 0’Neill. Celui-ci brosse le portrait d’une famille et de ses réalités, et l’on peut même y reconnaître ses propres combats dans le contexte d’une société en proie à l’alcool et à la drogue.

O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, one of “old sorrow, written in tears and blood”, centers on a dysfunctional family in an oceanside house in 1912. As Mary, the mother and wife, sinks deeper into morphine addiction while the doomed sons and father indulge in alcohol, hope seems to retreat and give way to resigned despair. Denial prevails during the first three acts, with the fourth seeing the family come to terms with the recognition of sad and brutal realities.

This autobiographical play is one of O’Neill’s masterpieces, and may be considered as a universal depiction of family reality as we look deeper into our own struggle with destiny, in a society placed under the strain of drugs and alcohol.

For Carlotta, on our 12th Wedding Anniversary.

Dearest : I give you the original script of this play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood. A sadly inappropriate gift, it would seem, for a day celebrating happiness. But you will understand. I mean it as a tribute to your love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love that enabled me to face my dead at last and write the play – write it with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones.

These twelve years, Beloved One, have been a Journey into Light – into love. You know my gratitude. And my love!
Gene

Tao House, July 22, 1941

These words of hope guard the first pages of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”. His present love presides over the figures of his past : his parents and brothers. Himself. This Pulitzer Prize winning play is indeed autobiographical; the author saw no need even to change names, except perhaps to switch his own with that of his brother who died in infancy.
It is not an easy task to produce “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, the stage directions, costume and character descriptions are so complete in their detail that it would be next to impossible to follow them to the letter. He created an exact family portrait. In staging this production, if we cannot be absolutely true to a physical enactment of O’Neill’s directions, then we will do our utmost to respect his emotional and moral homage. And so, we offer you his regret and pain, but most importantly his reconciled love, his atonement and his hope as we embark on this journey into night.

Let us renew the forgiveness.