National Theatre of Kosovo, premiere 31st May 2023
“We all belong to a greater force and if we resist that force and betray our real nature, we cause disaster!” ~ Eugene O’Neill
Long Day’s Journey into the Night is considered Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece. It earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1957, four years after his death. It shows what happens when instead of supporting one another, a family presses down on each other’s feelings and utmost desires, how destructive it can be.
O’Neill’s play condenses one family’s tragedy to one day in the summer house of the Tyrone family in 1912. Patriarch James Tyrone (Ernest Malazogu) is very much the master of the house, a miser who rose out of childhood poverty. His wife Mary (Arta Selimi) has become addicted to morphine because her aspirations in life have been slowly shut down; elder son Jamie (Allmir Suhodolli) is an alcoholic and a womanizer, while Edmund (Don Shala) the youngest son, is also an alcoholic and has been diagnosed with tuberculosis. There is also a housekeeper present, played by Florie Bajoku. Throughout the night the family continue to drink, punctuated by Edmund’s irritable yet pitiful coughing.
The idea that we are made by our choices, and our choices make us, is a crucial aspect of O’Neill’s play. We delve deep into the complexities of this dysfunctional family, we visit their past and learn their vices.
Bekim Korça’s scenography, coupled with the direction of Iliriana Arifi gives one the impression of a well-to-do family living a luxurious lifestyle. They eat at a four-piece dinner table that dominated the stage and created considerable physical distance between the members of the Tyrone family, emphasizing the emotional and communicative gaps between the family members.
The handsome room also contained a chandelier, a wall clock and a piano (beautifully played by Arta Selimi), while the costumes also emphasized the characters’ comfortable lifestyle. And yet the Tyrone family are burdened with predicaments that are irretrievable and unsolvable. James Tyrone, once a renowned actor, and his older son Jamie, have both sold out artistically, one chasing commercial success, the other pursuing worldly pleasures and a reckless lifestyle.
Long Day’s Journey into Night – National Theatre of Kosovo
Malazogu portrays the tensions within his character with the finest detail. We see in him a man who prides himself on being the family’s breadwinner, a former actor who has lowered himself in the pursuit of success. As Jamie, Sahadolli is boisterous and enthusiastic while Arta Selimi and Don Shala also do a good job of drawing the audience into their respective characters and building suspense.
Mary, the only woman in the house, has remained mentally stranded in her youth. Although she is fifty-four years old, she still longs to wear her wedding dress and bring back memories that only add to her anguish. Selimi’s hands are restless all the time, a sign of Mary’s addiction – Selimi really captures the rhythm of this. She roams her home trying to find some peace in sleep, while the three men try to keep her away of her morphine and learning of the tragic news that has befallen on them. Yet, despite her addiction, she has a little music left in her soul and find some moments to play some melancholic notes on her piano.
The dialogue of the play is sometimes dense and deep, words accumulated over a lifetime, waiting for years for this particular day to emerge from memory, to erupt into the air. The play sometimes makes you forget that this whole drama is set over the course of a single night. It sometimes feels like a lifetime. At the same time, Iliriana Arifi’s production also feels fast-paced and, sometimes even, over-packed in places. In some cases the actors talk over each other’s lines, which causes some of the meaning to be lost and makes it hard to follow everything that was going on.
And yet, the atmosphere director Arifi generates over the course of the production is perfect, with tension building from the beginning to its point of catharsis, peppered with small comic moments along the way. The production captures the psychology of each character and, in doing so, teaches you the lessons of a lifetime within a short amount of time.
Credits:
Director: Iliriana Arifi// Dramaturgy: Zoga Çeta Çitaku// Scenography: Bekim Korça// Costume designer: Njomza Luci//Composer: Memli Kelmendi
Cast: Ernest Malazogu, Arta Selimi, Allmir Suhodolli, Don Shala, Florie Bajoku
Florida is a lover of words, and of art in all its forms: fiction, poetry and drama.
