Sometimes its hard to tell, whether you simply do not like the play, or whether it is the production that is at fault. In this case, I think it is a little bit of both, but maybe its one and the same. There is probably an element in me that feels embarrassed that I seem not to find the story captivating. Afterall, this is the widely acclaimed autobiographical work by Nobel Prize-winning playwright, Eugene O’Neill. Not only is O’Neill referred to as the father of American theatre, this is seen as his seminal piece.

The insightful article on the Kennedy Center webpage explains: “This autobiographical play depicts one long, summer day in the life of the fictional Tyrone family, a dysfunctional household based on O’Neill’s immediate family during his early years. James Tyrone is a vain actor and penny pincher, as was O’Neill’s father James. Mary Tyrone struggles with a morphine addiction, as did his mother Ellen. The fictional son Jamie Tyrone is an alcoholic, as was O’Neill’s brother Jamie. And the Tyrones’ younger son Edmund is deathly ill with tuberculosis. (O’Neill himself suffered and recovered from a mild case of tuberculosis.)”

When it was first published in 1956, maybe this was a in fact a really innovative play in its painful realism and tackling the topic of addiction – to alcohol and to morphine – even if this was over a decade after Tennessee Williams published the Glass Menagerie. But these topics have since been addressed in many plays, films and books and so I did not have the feeling of real exploration. Maybe because this production seems to have kept very close to O’Neill’s meticulous and detailed stage directions, there was no scope for trying to make this story a bit more current, a bit more hard-hitting. At one point I caught my mind wondering, no longer following the long dialogues that did sound very realistic, but seemed equally as boring at times as watching Big Brother.

There were a couple of things that I did intrigue me or struck a chord. The first two acts seem to be acted in a way that approximates the acting in rehearsals for a high-school production. The emotions are all wrong, or missing. The delivery just a bit off and flat. I think this is symbolising the ongoing performative behaviours between family members – everyone says the right things, but their heart is not in it. On one hand – this is quite clever; on the other – it made it quite challenging not to lose focus.

The second half, acts 3 and 4, are played more naturally. Probably what struck me the most is some of the self-entitlement from the grown children that felt surprisingly current. Although knowing the autobiographical background to the play, I am not sure that the sentiment I felt had been the intended one.

There is one thing that is undoubtedly profound about this play and its production  – every character is resentful and unhappy with their life and the choices they made, but absolutely unwilling to take any accountability for those choices or real action to change things.