‘WALKING WITH GHOSTS’: Gabriel Byrne. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

WALKING WITH GHOSTS
Written by Gabriel Byrne
Directed by Lonny Price
Through December 30, 2022
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th Street
(212-719-6200), www.GabrielByrneOnBroadway.com

By David NouNou

Walking With Ghosts is an honest attempt by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne to stage and perform a one-man monologue about his childhood and part of his adulthood in Dublin. Mr. Byrne starts from the day he was born by being yanked out of his mother’s womb, and the struggles she had getting him out, and his shabby and drab surroundings growing up. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Auntie Mame, when Mame Dennis, writing her autobiography and collaborating with her Irish ghostwriter, Brian O’Bannion, regarding her birth and childhood, pens the confusing opener to her memoir: “Like an echo from the caves of Coccamaura, I came forth while Deirdre wept cool tears.” Definition: simply put “on the day I was born, it rained.”  It continues, “How bleak was my puberty in Buffalo.”  All I could think of was how dreary was Mr. Byrne’s puberty in Dublin?

It is not easy writing a compelling two-hour and 30-minute monologue about all the ghosts from his childhood and the past, starting with his parents, siblings, childhood friends, happy moments with grandma going to the cinema, colorful neighbors and drunkards, good and often spiteful teachers; and ultimately the “Catholic priest.” I needn’t finish that sentence. That brings us up to age 14 and end of Act I, clocking in at one hour and 15 minutes.

Act II starts with Mr. Byrne as a teenager, failing miserably at different jobs: plumber, dishwasher, bathroom clerk, until he finally gets to answer an ad for amateur actors to be in a Shakespeare company. This is where he finds his niche and begins to find friends and gain self-confidence. He starts getting small parts and some recognition. He meets his Irish idol, actor Micheál Mac Liammóir and meets Richard Burton for a scene he has with him, being filmed in Venice. From that drunken evening spent with Mr. Burton, Mr. Byrne tells us his downfall from grace due to his alcoholism and ultimately his will to overcome his addiction. Finally ending with the deaths of his mother and his father. As Mr. Byrne tells us, he is walking with ghosts and all these ghosts are inside him now.

There have been many and often effective monologues by actors on the New York stage: Last year’s Reuben Santiago-Hudson in Lackawanna Blues; the late Carrie Fisher back in 2009 in Wishful Drinking; Jesse Tyler Ferguson playing 40 different characters in 2016 in Fully Committed. These stars had the ability to inform as well as entertain. They engaged us from start to finish.

This doesn’t impugn Mr. Byrne as an actor in any way. He has given Broadway three indelible performances: James Tyrone Jr. in A Moon for the Misbegotten, Cornelius Melody in A Touch of the Poet, and James Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. He earned two Tony Award nominations for those roles.

However, with Walking With Ghosts, director Lonny Price should have known the tastes of American audiences better and done some strong editing and tightening. A lot of incidental fat could have been trimmed off.  We are left with Mr. Byrne not giving us a performance so much as exorcising his demons.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 27, 2022
Reviewed at October 26, 2022 press preview performance.

‘WALKING WITH GHOSTS’: Gabriel Byrne. Photo: Emilio Madrid.

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‘LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT’: Gabriel Byrne & Jessica Lange. Photo: Joan Marcus

LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
By Eugene O’Neill
Directed by Jonathan Kent
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street, (212-392-1652)
www.roundabouttheatre.org

By Scott Harrah

You’ve not truly seen Jessica Lange perform until you catch Roundabout’s revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night— for this is probably her best performance in years, if not ever. The tragic epic runs three hours and 45 minutes. However, this production is so wonderfully paced by director Jonathan Kent, and Ms. Lange’s portrayal is so haunting, that this marathon of family dysfunction circa 1912 almost seems like a breeze to sit through.

Ms. Lange plays Mary Cavan Tyrone, the wife of successful Irish actor James (Gabriel Byrne) and a woman battling decades of morphine addiction, broken dreams and a volatile relationship with her two sons. Many have portrayed Mary throughout the years, but Ms. Lange, at this point in her career, seems tailor made for the part. She is a marvelous mix of maturity, incandescent stage presence, vulnerability and strength. From the moment she enters the stage, she has us spellbound as she paces, full of nerves and emotion, with her hands running across her hair, or throat or smoothing out her dress. One minute she’s sweet and coquettish; the next, she’s yelling at the family. Watching Ms. Lange is exhausting as she recounts both the happy and painful details of her past, and it’s impossible to keep our eyes off her.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, first produced on Broadway in 1956, is Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical saga of his family in the early 20th century. It is a foggy August day at Monte Cristo Cottage, the seaside Connecticut estate of the Tyrones. Mary has recently returned from a sanitarium and has failed to kick her morphine habit (which she claims is medication for her arthritic hands). Elder son James (Michael Shannon) has a serious alcohol problem and visits the local brothel too much, while the family fears the constant coughing of younger son Edmund (John Gallagher, Jr.), modeled after O’Neill himself, means he probably has consumption (tuberculosis) and may soon be sent to a state sanitarium.

With his thick Irish brogue and elegant demeanor, Gabriel Bryne is certainly everything Eugene O’Neill had in mind for the character of James Tyrone: A man eager to maintain the love of his wife as she unravels.

Michael Shannon gives a solid depiction of a man overcome by his demons, one who admits his kid brother is his “only pal.” Unfortunately, John Gallagher, Jr. is less effective as Edmund, the youngest son.

The drama has never been easy to watch with its heavy talk about death, alcoholism, disease, an overly frugal father, and so on. Yes, it is melodramatic and repetitious at times. Although the play could use some trimming, it’s still a masterpiece and O’Neill’s greatest work. Perhaps that’s why director Jonathan Kent keeps everything intact here, with all the touches that remind us of O’Neill’s real-life family back in 1912, from Jane Greenwood’s elegant period costumes to Tom Pye’s gorgeous set. In a season of unorthodox revivals, it’s refreshing to see one that’s simple, straightforward and free of gimmicks, allowing audiences to appreciate everything that is great about an American classic.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night has received seven Tony nominations, including Best Revival of a Play, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play and Best Director of a Play.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 3, 2016
Reviewed at press performance on May 1, 2016

‘LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT’: John Gallagher, Jr. & Jessica Lange. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT’: Jessica Lange & Gabriel Byrne. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT’: (Left to right) John Gallagher, Jr. & Michael Shannon. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT’: Jessica Lange. Photo: Joan Marcus

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