Jessica Lange returns to Broadway in Long Day's Journey Into Night

[Lolita Di]

After several seasons of showcasing her talents on television’s American Horror Story, Jessica Lange is returning to the Broadway stage in the revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The show opens April 27 at New York’s American Airlines Theater.

 

This isn’t Lange’s first time appearing in the iconic Eugene O’Neill play. She first assumed the role of Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night in 2000, when she performed in the show’s London production. Lange first appeared on Broadway in 1992, when she assumed the iconic role of Blanche Du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire. The part earned her a Theater World Award. She returned to the Great White Way in 2005 when she was cast as The Mother in The Glass Menagerie.

 

While Lange  has had success in the theater, she is perhaps best known for her work in television and film. She first appeared on screen in 1976, when she made her acting debut in King Kong. Lange made a name for herself throughout the later 1970s and early 1980s. In 1982, she became the first actor in 40 years to be nominated for two Academy Awards in one year when she earned recognition for her roles in Frances and Tootsie. She won in the Best Supporting Actress category for the latter.

 

Lange was nominated for Academy Awards in 1985, 1986 and 1990. She became a winner once again in 1995, when she earned the prize for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Blue Sky.

 

Lange earned rave reviews in her first production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

 

“The secret is out: Hollywood for much of the past two decades has been hiding a great theater actress in Jessica Lange, and it has taken London’s West End to allow her stage gifts to fully shine.Nearly four years ago, Lange returned, under Peter Hall’s direction, to her 1992 Broadway role as Blanche DuBois — without in any way recycling the earlier performance. That achievement can now be seen as mere preparation for her current and fearsome endeavor, Eugene O’Neill’s Mary Tyrone.” - Variety magazine

 

“Lange, in a magnificently unsentimental performance, reminds us that Mary is a woman who constantly twists the knife in the family's wounds. You can argue that her addiction is to blame; and Lange captures astonishingly Mary's transition during the day from nervous, hankie-twisting tension to dreamy narcotic escape. But, without judging the character, Lange shows it is her endless picking at the familial scabs that is the real source of agony.” -The Guardian

 

“Not for nothing did Jack Nicholson once compare Lange to a cross between a fawn and a Buick. Her Mary Tyrone is nervous and coltish. She worries her lace handkerchief and pats her Gibson Girl wig. She flirts with her husband and flutters around Edmund, "the baby." But her fussy gentility is a mere distraction from what she really wants: a fix.” - Newsweek