CRITICS REACTION
The critical reception of Long Day’s Journey into Night has usually been well acclaimed. Few critics seem willing to give the play a negative opinion. Upon the plays production in the American theater in 1956 Brooks Atkinson ventured his bold opinion that Long Day’s Journey into Night “restores the drama to literature and the theatre to art” (Atkinson). Those who gave negative opinions of the play, like Thomas Dash, while very respectful of O’Neill, found the play structurally loose, and repeditive (Miller 135). Yet the reception was typically warm if not of high praise. Harold Clurman responded, “Oneill’s work is more than realism. And if it is stammering – it is still the most eloquent and significant stammer of the American theatre” (Cargill 216). As time has elapsed since the initial production and publication of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the critisim has still been enthusiaticlly positive. Many are finding new ways in which to read the play. Among the readings being investagated are a feminist view of Mary, the use alocholism and drug addiction, and the study of culture especially that of Irish-American families (Hiden 16). Excluding the few negative critics, the vast majority hold Eugene O’Neill as one of the American theatre’s finest playwrights and Long Day’s Journey Into Night as the finest play ever produced in the theatre.
