Long Day's Journey Into Night, Apollo - review

Anyone who admires great acting will savour the performances of David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf in this potent revival of Eugene O’Neill’s shattering tragedy.

Suchet is Irish-born patriarch James Tyrone, once a distinguished actor in his adopted America and now a rather grand has-been. Frequently dueling with his two sons Jamie and Edmund, he’s both soldierly and pathetic. It’s a performance full of telling detail; even the way Suchet uses a light switch or attends to a broken shoelace feels pregnant with significance.

James is often expansive in his gestures. But he can be miserly, as well as torn between the need to preserve his dignity and show how much he cares about his ailing wife Mary. She is portrayed with stunning conviction by Metcalf, known to British audiences mainly for her appearances in Desperate Housewives and Roseanne. Here she conveys with delicate precision yet also humanity and passion the travails of a woman long ago scarred by the loss of a child.

Over the course of a single day in August 1912, the family’s sorrows and fragile ambitions are set before us. Punctuated by the mournful sound of a foghorn, the action is characterized by a steadily growing density. Matters that at first seem straightforward, even if ugly, turn out to be haunted by trauma and what O’Neill called ‘hopeless hope’.

This autobiographical piece, written in 1940 but not performed until 1956 (by which time O’Neill was dead), is closely concerned with addiction. The men are all hardened drinkers, yet they tend to be furtive and look accusingly at anyone who lapses into self-indulgence. And Mary, who repeatedly drifts back into the mists of the past, is locked in a battle of her own – with morphine.

In Anthony Page’s production, which features an excellent design by Lez Brotherston, the moments of fervent confrontation are skillfully realised. So are the bursts of comedy. Besides the two leads there’s compelling work from Trevor White as Jamie, a loveless cynic, and from rising star Kyle Soller, who suggests the hollow exhaustion of the sickly Edmund while also imbuing him with just the right mix of dreaminess, charm and anger.

The result is moving. It’s about as far away as you can imagine from a perky night out in the West End, but deeply courageous in its account of O’Neill’s anguished vision.

Until August 18 (0844 412 4658)