Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, born of searing memories of his parents and brother, is one of the great American plays. It may be that he treated his family too harshly and himself too leniently; but the alchemy of his art has given his raw material that representative quality which touches all of us, and makes us truly know their universal pain.

Here, the father is an actor who subordinated his talent to his craving for money, about which he has become obsessive and miserly. His eldest son, James, is a ne'er-do-well, a drunk and frequenter of brothels. Younger son Edmund, in whom can plainly be seen the author and his growing pains as a writer, has been sowing wild oats and contracted consumption. The ebb-and-flow tensions between father and sons are almost tangible, always close to crisis-point.

These tensions exist in the eye of a more furious storm; the mother's drug-addiction. She has been, in the primitive parlance of the time, a dope fiend since the birth of Edmund, having become addicted to the pain-killing medication then given to her. As the play opens, she has been home some short time from a sanatorium, apparently cured; but her menfolk soon discern her drift back to oblivion. Before the night has ended, the nightmare has again embraced them all.

There cannot be many other plays which have so truly explored the complexities of family relationships, the love-hate syndrome through which they strip each other to the bare bones. The acting here is quite superb, extracting every nuance from the self-inflicted agonies. Donald Moffat is wonderful as the father, torn between greed and affection. James Jnr is played by David Herlihy with that total conviction he seems to bring to every role, a major performance. As Edmund, Andrew Scott is the essence of raw sensitivity, one who wears his skin inside out.

Mary Tyrone is played by Rosaleen Linehan with an authority born of sheer interpretative strength. In movement, voice and expression, she fully exploits the words with which she tortures those dear to her, a wholly credible personification of the role. There were times when I thought I discerned moments of a smaller, more subtle interpretation peeping through; an odd notion of a fine performance suggesting, within itself, a better one. But then she is an actress who repays the closest attention.

Karel Reisz directs his cast, not omitting Sonya Kelly in the small but effective role of the maid, with clear intent and achievement. He has the benefit of a most handsome set design by Robin Don and an effective lighting plot from Peter Mumford. The play has been invisibly shortened to a three-hour span, and is not a moment too long. O'Neill's reputation as the father of modern American theatre is here vindicated again.

Runs until April 25th