Page 139 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book
P. 139
despairingly judge the boys’ mother, Mary (an ethereal Patricia Clarkson),
for her morphine addiction, which hangs over the family like a poison cloud.
Patricia Clarkson and Louisa Harland steal the show in Long Day’s Journey
into Night at the Wyndhams. Photo: Johan Persson
That all the men heavily abuse alcohol, and that poor Mary was originally
introduced to opiates by a quack doctor, chosen by the miserly James for his
low prices, add yet more heavy layers of self-delusion and resentment to the
weight pressing on this unhomely home.
I dunno. I think I appreciate it better when I’m not actually watching it.
There’s so much talking, Jesus. It goes on and on. Louisa Harland’s
brilliantly funny Irish maid, Cathleen, is a welcome relief from the brooding
tension whenever she appears, but the real star here is Clarkson, who wafts
around in an expanding haze of drugs and denial as the play’s one day goes
on, only very occasionally coming to earth in solo moments of searing
clarity, to rage against the lies she tells herself.
Everyone is doing a great job. It’s a well-constructed, if play-y play. It’s just
a very, very long day indeed.
