Actors
Ensemble emphasizes ghostly aspects of Long Day's Journey
By
Jeanne Fogler - STAFF WRITER OAKLAND TRIBUNE
Eugene O'Neill wrote Long Day's Journey Into Night to confront
the ghosts of his life.
The Actors Ensemble of Berkeley production that opened Friday at
Live Oak Park Theatre presents this play with an emphasis on the ghostly
presence of its characters.
Director Jean-Marie Apostolides has chosen to transcend the
straight-out realistic aspect of the drama by augmenting it with
symbolic elements. This is evident from the first appearance of the
players. They enter through the auditorium in a stately, quasi-religious
procession bearing aloft a statue of the Virgin Mary and two huge
volumes: Hamlet and August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata.
Everything, from these entrance props to the actor's costumes to the
elements of the bare-bones stage set is (ghostly) white. One interesting
effect is a standup panel with a silhouette of a female form cut from
it. While the obvious reaction is to regard this as representing Mary
Tyrone, it also serves at various points as a device to frame the silent
presence of one of the family members or to express a character's sense
of isolation.
At other moments, shadowy upstage tableaux reflect the deteriorating
condition of Mary's mental state.
In the play itself, several interlinked issues recur to define the
particular dysfunctions of the Tyrone family - money, alcohol, illness,
lives wasted or irrevocably altered, loss of religious faith. The giant
in the middle of all these is mother Mary's off-again, on-again morphine
addiction, which is revealed to the audience gradually throughout the
long summer day in which the play unfolds.
Perception is colored by denial at the play's beginning, as the
tense, fluttering Mary accuses her husband and sons of spying on her.
They don't want to believe, and she doesn't want to admit, that she has
started using again. She also doesn't want to believe, and they don't
want to tell her, that younger son Edmund's illness may be something far
more serious than a lingering summer cold.
As the day progresses, everyone's story emerges: The decline of the
brilliant promise of father James' acting career, older son Jamie's
resentment toward Edmund, Mary's departure from convent life and her
spiral into friendlessness. Even while the Tyrones sling various
recriminations at one another, inklings of deep affection rise to the
surface, making this web of problems even more poignant.
The principal actors - with Mikel Clifford as Mary, Charlie Anderson
as James, Erik Kaul as Jamie and Noah Feinstein as Edmund - all turn in
strong performances. But I noticed an odd thing: They all appear
noticeably more comfortable and vigorous in their roles during the
second act than in the first.
This could possibly be chalked up to a collective case of
opening-night jitters, which everyone eased out of as they grew more
relaxed. But another audience member commented that it could be because
O'Neill doesn't really get to the heart of the matter until the second
act, at which point the actors are then able to hit their stride.
Catch them while you can: Long Day's Journey Into Night runs
until May 11. The summer production of Actor's Ensemble will be Wendy
Wasserman's The Heidi Chronicles. After that, the company will
have a one-year hiatus while the building that houses Live Oak Park
Theatre undergoes earthquake retrofitting.
IF YOU GO
Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night"
Presented by: Actors Ensemble of Berkeley
Where: Live Oak Park Theatre,
1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, plus May
9; closes May 11
Tickets:$10 Call:(510) 528-5620
Article
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 6:37:50 PM MST
Reproduced by permission of Jeanne Fogler
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