'Long Day's Journey' at home in Tao House

The breeze grows colder as evening draws into night in the old barn at Tao House.

Surrounded by ancient barn wood, faded, stained and paint dappled, the audience sits on folding chairs, watching Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" come to life on the sparsest of sets.

There's a table, a chandelier tied to the roof beams, a few chairs, some of them wicker, and there's a bottle of booze backed by a pitcher of water.

But, above all, there is magic in this rugged barn on a hillside in Danville. It is not far from here, a couple of hundred feet, really, where O'Neill locked himself behind three doors and exorcised his soul to bring "Long Day's Journey" to life.

So the chill and the sparse set really don't mean much. O'Neill's words have been brought home to Tao House, where O'Neill lived from 1937-43 and wrote his final, and most memorable plays, including "Long Day's Journey." The author's words on Thursday were carried home by the Pear Avenue Theatre, a Mountain View company in the midst of a production of the show, which is part of the weekend-long Eugene O'Neill Festival. All shows are sold out

Their presentation, spare as the set it plays on, is a clear and straightforward interpretation that seems to grow warmer as the temperature inside the barn grows cooler. The show, a painful autobiographical story about a family picking at its own shattered remains in a pitiful attempt to either pick up the pieces or destroy itself entirely, plays particularly poignantly at Tao House because of the cruel contrast between the pristine surroundings of the O'Neill home and the tortured tale the author composed from his second-floor office.

"Long Day's Journey" is the story of the Tyrone Family, James Sr. (Tom Amman), a famous actor near the end of his career; Mary (Diane Tasca), his wife, whose pain has driven her to drugs; James Jr. (Eric Rice), the eldest living son, an actor and a drunkard; and Edmund (John Russell), the youngest son, an alcoholic in ill health (the Eugene O'Neill character). The characters are based on O'Neill's own family, and the story plays almost as a confession of family dysfunction, sin and redemption, religious guilt and one horrible day when it seems like this out-of-control family finally hits the wall.

As the day wears on, we discover many secrets, including Mary's return to drugs, Edmund's diagnosis of consumption and a mutual family personality disorder that has all whipsawing back and forth between love and hate.

It is a masterfully written piece, probably O'Neill's best, and a wonderful opportunity for actors to play larger-than-life characters who are considerably more human than heroic. That, in fact, is something of a problem at the beginning of the show, as the actors have some difficulty creating personalities that are truly not likable. This isn't a problem for long, however, since they quickly settle into the genetic insanity of the Tyrone family to create memorable versions of the haunted quartet.

Late in the show, the family has been rubbed raw by the abrasive nature of their torture, and there is little left to shield them from their most basic selves.

The change is most evident in James Sr. and Mary, and Amman and Tasca create an enormously engaging character arc with their performances. Rice and Russell have less firepower, but the anguish of the sons is vivid and well-played. And, as a piece of delightful comic relief, Sarah Eismann as the maid, Cathleen, is wonderful in a tiny role.

Pat Craig is the Times theater critic. Reach him at 925-945-4736 or pcraig@cctimes.com.

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