Private Project

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Written by Eugene O’Neil between 1941 and 1942, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a foundational American tragedy. As well as winning the Tony Award for Best Play in 1956, O’Neil was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his semi-autobiographical magnum opus.

Taking place over the course of 24 hours, it depicts the Tyrone family, who, despite attempts at affection and intimacy, are locked in a cycle of conflict and resentment.

When sensitive youngest son Edmund returns home from time at sea, he discovers the family in a state of collapse. His father, James, is an alcoholic miser stewing in whisky and regret. His mother, Mary, has just returned from a spell at the sanatorium but hides an ongoing addiction to morphine. Meanwhile, elder brother, Jamie, is slipping into licentiousness and despair, blaming James for all his failures.

Across the day, the two brothers clash repeatedly over how to help their mother, while Mary becomes increasingly concerned about Edmund's worsening health. As the story builds to a shattering climax we see the family, through an unflinching lens, struggling with addiction and illness, depending on and blaming one another in equal measure.

  • Jonathan Kent
    Director
  • David Lindsay-Abaire
    Writer
    Rabbit Hole, Oz the Great and Powerful, Rise of the Guardians
  • Gabrielle Tana
    Producer
    Philomena, The Dig, The Duchess, Thirteen Lives
  • Redmond Morris
    Producer
    The Dig, The Rhythm Section, The Reader
  • Bill Kenwright
    Producer
    My Night with Reg, The Fanatic
  • Gleb Fetisoff
    Producer
    Loveless
  • Carolyn Marks Blackwood
    Producer
    Philomena, The Dig, The White Crow
  • Jessica Lange
    Key Cast
    "Mary Tyrone"
    Tootsie, The Postman Always Rings Twice
  • Ed Harris
    Key Cast
    "James Tyrone"
    The Truman Show, Apollo 13, Top Gun: Maverick
  • Ben Foster
    Key Cast
    "Jamie Tyrone"
    Hell or High Water, Leave No Trace
  • Colin Morgan
    Key Cast
    "Edmund Tyrone"
    Belfast, Legend, Testament of Youth
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 49 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    7,900,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    Ireland
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Dublin Internation Film Festival
    Dublin
    Ireland
    February 27, 2025
    World Premiere
  • Glasgow International Film Festival
    Glasgow
    United Kingdom
    February 28, 2025
    UK Premiere
Director Biography - Jonathan Kent

Jonathan Kent is an international opera and theatre director whose multi-award winning productions have played in New York and London. He has been nominated for multiple Tony and Olivier awards. His theatre productions have been seen in the West End, Broadway, Dublin and Edinburgh. He has directed opera at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne, the English National Opera, St Petersburg, in Paris, New York, Santa Fe, Los Angeles and Tokyo. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to the performing arts.

Between 1990 and 2002 Jonathan was joint Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre, which he co-founded as a full-time producing theatre. His productions included When We Dead Awaken; All for Love; Medea (also West End/Broadway); Chatsky; The Showman; The School for Wives; Gangster No 1; Tartuffe; The Life of Galileo; The Rules of the Game; Ivanov (also Moscow); The Government Inspector; Naked (also West End); The Tempest; Hamlet (also Broadway); Richard II; Coriolanus (also New York/Tokyo); Phèdre; Britannicus (also West End/New York); Plenty (West End); Lulu (also Washington); Platonov and King Lear.

Other theatre work includes The Forest (Hampstead Theatre); Talking Heads (first on the BBC, subsequently Bridge Theatre); A German Life (Bridge Theatre); The Height of the Storm (Wyndham’s/Broadway); Peter Gynt (co-production with National Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival); Slaves of Solitude; Sweet Bird of Youth (Chichester Festival Theatre); Long Day’s Journey into Night (Broadway).

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Director Statement

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is the greatest American tragedy - yes, of course about the terrible consequences of addiction, with all its contemporary resonances. But, as much as this, it carries the universal themes of love and compassion, mutual dependence and, at the same time, the desperation to escape. The four characters are as addicted to each other as much as they are to their individual drug.

It’s a savage narrative...and, in the film, we’d move from the apparently tranquil, seductive Andrew Wyeth world of the beginning - although always with an undertow of unease - through to the terrible chaos of the end. It becomes a shocking, Francis Bacon world where the three men become almost feral, driven by drink and despair. Cinematically, the framing of the beginning would be controlled and orderly, then move to a wild, hand-held mayhem by the end, as the three men attack each other, lit only by the sweeping beam of the lighthouse, punctuated by the melancholy sound of a fog-horn. It has the cinematic potential of a ghost-story - the four characters haunt each other, trapped together in a house by the sea. It is important that the house becomes the fifth character in the drama - a sort of inescapable limbo, a brooding presence even when the characters are outside, on the beach or in the garden. Ironically, in the wake of the pandemic, audiences now understand consequences of confinement in a way they might not have before. And, it goes without saying, the terrible price of addiction is something we are all too familiar with in our beleaguered world.

Above all, it is a devastating vehicle for four great actors. Pulitzer prize winning writer David Lindsay-Abaire has written a version, which - while of course remaining true to the original's spirit- lifts it to a cinematic and immediate level, which, importantly, leaves its theatrical antecedents far behind.

Ireland was O’Neill’s spiritual home. The characters, from the four protagonists, and even through to the maid who works for them, are self-consciously Irish. And the coast of Ireland echoes the North Eastern shore of America. Filming in Ireland - with a brilliant Irish designer and predominantly Irish crew - would bring a resonance, which already lies within the piece, to the fore.