In the parlor where it all happened

I attended a performance of Eugene O’Neill’s tragic masterpiece, “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” staged in the living room of the Monte Cristo Cottage. Produced by the Flock Theatre, this was a first-rate interpretation of O’Neill’s depiction of a day in the life of the dysfunctional Tyrones (thinly disguised surrogates for his own broken family).

I believe no other company has produced “Long Day’s Journey” at the cottage, Eugene’s boyhood summer home. The playwright set the entirety of his four-act tragedy in the parlor of the shabby house; past productions have recreated on various stages the room’s accoutrements, to draw their audiences into that intimate setting. Nothing, though, prepares you for being a spectator in the room itself.

In the Flock Theatre’s production, Acts I and II were staged mid-afternoon. After a lengthy intermission, Acts III and IV followed as day dropped down into night, during which the parents’ and the two sons’ drug-and-alcohol-induced resentments smoldered, then erupted. It was horrifying yet mesmerizing to be there, watching four people disintegrate as darkness fell.

If, as Tolstoy wrote, “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” the Tyrones’ (O’Neills’) despair stemmed from their heritage and from the betrayals, addictions, and existential angst haunting them, mingled with a genuine, if impaired, love for one another.

As for the Monte Cristo Cottage, it remains one of the hidden gems of New London. Kudos to the Flock Theatre for reintroducing it, in such a vivid way, to the public!

Nothing prepares you for being a spectator of “Long Day’s Journey into Night” performed at Eugene O’Neill’s own family home, the Monte Cristo Cottage.