Eugene O’Neill and the Abbey Theatre

Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill starring as T.P. Mc Kenna James Tyrone, Jnr. and Vincent Dowling as Edmund Tyrone premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 1959, just three years after it was published. 

There is a long-held association between the Abbey Theatre and Eugene O’Neill. Famously he attended the Abbey Players in New York. The Abbey plays, he later recalled, came as a revelation:

‘It was seeing the Irish players that gave me a glimpse of my opportunity. I went to see everything they did. I thought then and I still think that they demonstrate the possibilities of naturalistic acting better than any other company.’

Over the years the Abbey Theatre has produced In the Zone, Emperor Jones, Hughie, The Iceman Cometh, All My Sons, Desire under the Elms, Days Without End, Before Breakfast, Ah Wilderness! and A Moon for the Misbegotten on tour in America.