Written: 9:38 p.m.
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Eugene O' Neill, one of the most acclaimed playwrights of our history (author of such works as "The Iceman Cometh, and "Moon For the Misbegotten"), wrote one of his most famous plays, "Long Day's Journey Into Night", later in his career, completing it only some years before he lost the ability to write completely. Poetically written, and scorchingly personal, "Long Day's..." is a saga of the rarely spoken tragedies that both hold together and rip apart a family (more specifically, the Tyrone family) in all of one day. Darkly cynical and at the same time beautiful in it's simplicity, O' Neill commands his character's forth from the pages to encircle you with their thoughts and feelings in ways never before imagined in a dialogue. In a careful balance of description and omission, the world of the play is unfurled in all it's glory and horror within the minds of the attentive and imaginative and leaves one speechless with emotions both joyful and sorrowful, flying through the pages in anticipation and dread of the conclusion.
"Long Day's Journey Into Night", only one of O'Neill's masterpieces, is a breathtaking feat of representation humanity at it's rawest state. I highly recommend this play, as well as O'Neill's other works to not only theater enthusiasts, but to lovers of language and the human experience as a whole.
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