The late Brian Dennehy (!938-2020) discusses his role in " A Long Day's Journey into Night," Eugene O'Neill, the complexities of working with Vanessa Redgrave and the drawbacks of star-treatment. Tape Date: 6/16/2003
I am forever grateful I got to see this towering production with this incredible cast. Brian Dennehy and Vanessa Redgrave (particularly, just as he says) are so brilliant and magnetic; but so is everyone.
O'Neill wrote the two best American plays: The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey into Night. The first was a symbolic play, the second was realistic. John Frankenheimer's film of the former is the best picture ever made of one of his plays. Robert Ryan, Fredric March and Lee Marvin were utterly excellent.
The 1962 black and white film with Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards & Dean Stockwell was my introduction to O’Neil. Years later, after reading the play, and having seen much more live theatre, my sense was that that film, while adequate, was simply too unceasingly & uninterruptedly dark/heavy/somber/humorless. The darkness & heaviness is obviously there, but my thought was that given that this was an Irish/Irish American family, there would’ve also been much genuine humor(& love), and that any actors cast in this play simply MUST find those moments, and any production that turns into 3 hours of non-stop heaviness & bitter sarcasm, is simply missing an essential ingredient, and tone-deaf. I didn’t get to see this production, but I hope that this cast found those moments….🙏🎭☘️
Adequate, but not an excellent performance. No comparison to Frederic March. Mis-cast. Good as the Sheriff in Rambo, (he is good in this) but not this part. He does not have the depth of talent to make "the willing suspension of dis-belief" work here.
