Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...And that leaves me with Waller, who turns in the best work I've ever seen this actor do. His guy's Act 3 meltdown, a great drunken howl of rage, pain and cynicism, begins with a fall over the front steps so vivid you fear for the actor's body, and then progresses from there through the myriad colors O'Neill provides. Once Yulin and Waller start to stare and shout each other down, now deep into the night, you find yourself strikingly ready for a longer journey. If only it, we, went backward in years."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Mary Beth Fisher doesn't strike me as an obvious fit for the role. Her talents for communicating common sense and righteous albeit withering anger seem at odds with a character prone to panic when she's not high and elaborate, romanticized reminiscence when she is. But it turns out Fisher's natural, grounded quality helps keep her from drifting too far into either hysteria or glassy-eyed torpor. Her Mary is mercurial and intelligent, with flashes of mordant wit, keen insight, and gut-wrenching sorrow."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...But it's Mary Beth Fisher's paranoid, loving, passive-aggressive and haunting Mary on which this production hinges. Her slow unraveling over the course of this long day is as heartbreaking as it is compelling. In Court's worthy revival, Fisher gets the last word literally and figuratively."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...The Court Theatre's production of Eugene O'Neill's brutal masterpiece "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is the blazing star of Chicago's stage season. Here, with a magnificent cast directed by David Auburn, is a close-up photograph of the human condition at its most vulnerable, unretouched and utterly devastating."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Long Day’s Journey into Night is a show that should be seen, but not casually. At three and a half hours long, it demands not only a great deal of time, but also the willingness of the audience to fully engage. The only part of Auburn’s production which drags is the very beginning. Once the sons figure out that their mother is using drugs again, they turn on their father, and for the remainder of the play, the characters maneuver their way into each other’s sympathy in search of vindication."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...Perhaps most importantly, Doonan, who played Edmund Tyrone, and Fisher were perfectly matched as son and mother, and each interaction between was highly believable, largely because they corresponded so much with those interactions in every-day reality. Doonan, sickly; intelligent; and sensitive, as Edmund, undoubtedly gave the strongest and most grounded performance in the play, helping center his colleagues’ acting. And although obviously ill, Doonan’s, portrayal of Edmund left considerable ambiguity to his sickness’ nature, so his mother’s reluctance to acknowledge its true severity was more understandable than it might otherwise have been, much as Fisher’s performance allowed the family’s reluctance to believe she’s on morphine again to be a bit more credible."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...A 1987 staging of “Long Day’s Journey,” which featured Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, and Peter Gallagher in its cast, took a hatchet job to O’Neill’s text, trimming it down by a good 40 minutes. Seeing the play in its full element at Court makes one wish that Auburn had made similarly bold choices."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is an American classic. This is honest storytelling about family, addiction and regret. Knowing the personal parallels to O'Neill's life makes it that much more profound. Court does an exceptional job making us care about this unhappy family."
Chicago Theater Beat - Highly Recommended
"...After O'Neill finished Long Day's Journey Into Night, he locked it away with orders that it wasn't to be published until after his death. Given that, it's tempting to surmise the piece is deeply autobiographical. Whether that's the case or not, you'll recognize these people and their battles. And you will surely recognize that Auburn has helmed a definitive staging of an American masterpiece."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...Director David Auburn (best known as the author of Proof) has orchestrated a solidly real and humane production of this wrenching family story. At the moment the play begins, Mary walks on to the stage, before the house lights dim, as if to signal this is a day like any other. Auburn has cast a family of superb actors in coupling Yulin and Fisher, Waller (one of those solid Chicago actors you have seen many times), and Doonan, who inhabits the character of Edmund so sensitively."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...As a play and a production "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is exhausting in every sense. It takes its audience right up to their emotional limitations. If you were to peek over and peer down into the void you could just make out the shadow of the Tyrones, forever lost to each other and themselves. And just beyond them, the ghost of O'Neill floating in the ether, free at last."
