Why Long Day's Journey

Angela Dant  (Mary) 

Looking back at the many roles  I've played on Bay Area stages over 30-plus years, I realize that I’ve been consistently drawn to characters demanding great emotional depth and brutal honesty. Taking on the iconic role of Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night is one that requires more depth and honesty than just about any other and thus presents a challenge like no other. It is a challenge I am eager to meet.

The Tyrone’s family struggles resonate with me: I have known alcoholism and addiction in my own family so it isn’t difficult for me to imagine the battle that Mary’s waging. And as a wife and a mother, I also understand Mary’s aching desire to reconnect with the woman she once was and with the dreams and ambitions that existed before marriage and motherhood shaped her current identity. 

The longing for the life she never had and the grief accompanying this loss is something that I was excited to explore throughout the rehearsal process. At the same time, I tried to find a balance, with moments of lightness, humor and hope before the tipping point where there's no turning back, where she ultimately takes leave of reality. With years of experience in emotionally demanding roles, such as M’Lynn in Steel Magnolias, Jessie in ’Night, Mother, and most recently Volumnia in Coriolanus, I feel fully prepared to take our audiences on Mary’s complex and heartbreaking journey.  

Peter Malmquist (Jamie)

I’m very excited to be a part of this production of one of the great plays of the 20th century. Since I began working in theatre, I’ve always dreamed of being in a Eugene O’Neill play. Mostly because my dad’s name is Eugene, but I guess there are some other reasons too. 

One of those reasons is O'Neill's deep sensitivity to what it means to be human, to struggle and to fight for your life under any circumstance. I’m especially interested Long Day’s Journey Into Night  because it honestly looks at the fragility of a family, and the lengths we will go to deny and avoid the truth, even with the people closest to us. I feel incredibly privileged to be playing a character who’s my exact age, and although he comes from a very different time, there are more things we share than I ever imagined. .

Miles Millikan (Edmund)

I've been a part of theater since I was what, eight years old? Since then, storytelling on the stage has always been a deep part of my identity and means of expression. The discovery of myself through the embodiment of another character in another world is a very precious experience to me, and the characters I choose to live with is a thoughtful act. Since graduating from Emerson College for theater in 2022, I took an organic hiatus from acting, turning towards music, circleSinging, and teaching kids. Then, last year, I acted in my first play since graduating - A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was an extraordinary gift of a return and a resurrection of so much of what I love about theater.

And now, almost two years later, I have the opportunity to walk in the other end of the spectrum of theatrical performance. Long Day's Journey Into Night is no joke! And it cannot be taken on casually. When I was in high school, my dad told me this was his all-time favorite play, and since then it has lived in me as a story with very high regards. The opportunity to play Edmund, a young man in a constant tug-of-war trying to stand for his own identity, to create his own reality, and maintain his place in his family is a very resonant experience for me. Someone who sees the world swathed in poetry and color...someone who knows his place is in that poetry, and yet can't seem to take the rags of his society off of his body...this is a gift of a character to dance with. What is it to play someone who is sick? What is to be someone who believes he isn't long for this world, and who is taken from depression to hope to playfulness to fear to ecstatic poetry all in the course of a single day? This is the gift of a question I get to try and answer. I can't wait

Jeffrey Hoffman (Director)

Long Day's Journey Into Night is one of those plays so iconic that every actor and director dreams of exploring its depths at least once in their lives; however, we also fear the endless complexities that lurk beneath its pages.  Figuring out what these haunted characters want from each other - for example, which responses will bring them peace or disappointment or remind them to rekindle love - will be both a creative joy and a challenging predicament.  But I'm excited by the opportunity to dive in and determine how to engage audience members who already know this classic script like the back of their hands, as well as those who are unfamiliar with the plight of the Tyrone family.

One way to do this is to overcome the play's sheer length.  There's a reason why it's called a "long journey", and many productions last well over three hours.  Will modern audiences have the interest or attention span to root for these characters across that much time?  To help tell the story more quickly and to focus the lens a bit more on the Tyrones, we decided to eliminate some of the play's poetic repetition and to completely omit the character of Cathleen, the Tyrone's maid who typically lightens the mood over a longer performance.  I hope that even diehard O'Neill fans will appreciate our streamlined version.

Kevin Copps (Tyrone, Producer)

In 2019 I had the good fortune to play Tyrone in the Eugene O’Neill Foundation’s production of Long Day’s Journey at Tao House, in Danville (CA), where O’Neill lived when he wrote the play. The production then traveled to New Ross, Ireland, the point of embarkation for O’Neill’s parents when they emigrated to America in 1855 (O’Neill was born in 1888), where it was presented at the annual International O’Neill Festival. It would be an understatement to say the experience has stuck with me -  the play, O’Neill and James Tyrone have since become a major focus of my waking hours. The character fascinates me, the family fascinates me. 

It has been said that great plays are better than they can ever be performed, that there is no such thing as a perfect, or definitive, performance. The great playwrights present worlds of emotional complexity with unlimited opportunities for nuance, shadings, emphasis, physicality and stagings. Think Shakespeare, or Tennessee Williams, or Edward Albee. And certainly Eugene O’Neill. They are always asking us to reach for more, and cannot be reduced to single interpretations.  Is there such a thing as a perfect production of “Hamlet?” Or a definitive portrayal of Willy Loman? Or James Tyrone?  An acting teacher once wisely told our class that you cannot become a great actor or director unless you work and great writing. There is no greater writing than what O’Neill has written in this family tragedy, and so we are all reaching for greatness.   

I can’t say with certainty why I feel a deep connection to James Tyrone: unlike him, who is based on the playwright’s own father, the actor James O’Neill, I've never been considered a promising Shakespearean (I’ve never even been in one of his plays), and if my name were ever on a marquis, it wouldn’t cause a to stampede to the box office.  But I know the kind of sadness Tyrone feels that comes from giving up on ambitions because an easier (or more lucrative) alternative was an option. I expect I am not alone in this. And there are aspects of Tyrone that remind me of my father, who was nineteen when the great depression of 1929 unfolded, and he never let us forget the value of a dollar. He was also an alcoholic. 

After my Danville/Ireland experience, I knew that I had to enter the Tyrone’s world again. And after six years of waiting in vain for the opportunity to present itself, I decided that I would  make the opportunity and create my own production. I guess you could call it a ‘bucket list’ kind of thin.