WOMEN suffering, resilient, oppressed and themselves sometimes oppressive dominate theatre this month. The first thing to say about the fine revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night at Wyndham's is that there should be no surprise that Patricia Clarkson's performance as Mary Tyrone has led the reviews: she is one of a long line of hailed Marys, including Jessica Lange, Laurie Metcalf and, most recently, Lesley Manville.
My own view of O'Neill's monumental play written in 1940 and first performed in 1956-has been heavily shaped by a review written by the American critic Harold Clurman in 1971. Clurman's argument was that the play is ultimately about loss of faith.
Mary Tyrone has lost her faith in God that sustained her in her convent upbringing. Her actor husband, James, is a devout Shakespearean who has sacrificed his belief to achieve success in a popular hit (as did O'Neill's father in The Count of Monte Cristo). Her elder son, James Jnr, has lost faith in his mother, whose profound loneliness has driven her into morphine addiction, and her younger son, Edmund, is a would-be poet seeking an ecstasy that he only realised during a year spent at sea.
Esta historia es de la edición April 17, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición April 17, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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Put some graphite in your pencil
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Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday
Heaven is a place on earth
For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
It's the plants, stupid
I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.
Pretty as a picture
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How golden was my valley
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The fire within
An occasionally deadly dinner-party addition, this perennial plant would become the first condiment produced by Heinz
Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good
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All I need is the air that I breathe
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My art is in the garden
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