Director Darryl Maximilian Robinson's Multiracial Casts of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night'

One of the most challenging, difficult and truly rewarding plays Darryl Maximilian Robinson ever had the honor of directing and acting in was Eugene O'Neill's dramatic masterpiece and hours-long family saga "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

 

With his multiracial chamber theatre ensemble, Excaliber Productions, Ltd. in St. Louis and The Excaliber Shakespeare Company in Chicago, Mr. Robinson twice directed and starred as the family patriarch, James Tyrone, Sr.

 

Both productions were quite different and both casts were quite talented, which is required for such a powerful piece of American Theatre.

 

In the early fall of 1993, in a staging at Cummel's Cafe on Washington Avenue in Downtown St. Louis, the cast directed by and featuring Darryl Maximilian Robinson as James Tyrone, Sr. included Suzzette Sutton as Mary Tyrone, William Rapp, Jr. as James Tyrone, Jr., Ben Young as Edmund Tyrone and Amy Mohme as Cathleen. The staging was well-received by audiences and in October of 1993, the Excaliber Productions, Ltd. revival was highlighted in a featured arts interview on KDHX, St. Louis Public Radio.

 

 

 

In 1997, The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago production at The Heartland Cafe Studio Theatre was greatly benefited by the presence of Jeff Helgeson, who served as dramaturg, co-designer and associate producer of the rendition, just as he had for ESC's award-winning, critically-praised productions of "Master Harold and The Boys" and "Waiting For Godot."

 

The cast at The Heartland included Danielle Gordon as Mary Tyrone, Steve Young as James Tyrone, Jr. Ashley Housely as Cathleen and Ian Vogt, whose moving performance as Edmund Tyrone would make him winner of a 1998 Joseph Jeffeson Citation Award for Outstanding Achievement By An Actor In A Supporting Role. The ESC's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" would go on to become the third award-winning theatre production in-a-row Darryl Maximilian Robinson would direct in 1997, and he was thrilled to mount all three pieces in the intimate confines of The Heartland Cafe Studio Theatre.

 

 

 

Of the Alums of the cast of the 1997 Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" actor Steven Wilson ( who gave a fine performance as James Tyrone, Jr. ) continued his work in the local professional Chicago Theatre Community for years and became notable not only as a gifted actor, but a skilled director as well.

Before he would earn critical praise and award recognition for well-received, intimate stagings of classic plays with multiracial casts in his original hometown of Chicago, Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago Founder Darryl Maximilian Robinson honed and developed his vision and voice as a play director during the five-year period he served as Producer-Director of Excaliber Productions, Ltd. in St. Louis.

In training or teaching his young company of actors, Mr. Robinson placed an emphasis on his company members reading great plays, going out and seeing great plays ( and if the work in question was not available live ), listening to recordings of great plays.

Mr. Robinson insisted actors not only study and properly prepare the texts that they were going to live onstage in, but to also make an effort to study the history and the documented choices the previous generation of noted actors made in many of the works!

It was in St. Louis, in 1991, at The Old Post Office and The Utopian Loft Gallery and Theatre that Mr. Robinson first directed a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan In Hell ( the famed third act extrapolation from Shaw's Man And Superman which starred highly-gifted young actor Christian Kohn, who would later win roles at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and on New York stages, in the title role of the Excaliber Productions, Ltd. revival! ).

It was in St. Louis, in 1992, with his multiracial cast, that Mr. Robinson staged a 1960s rock-and-roll themed revival of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Midtown Arts Center.

 

And it was in St. Louis, in 1993, that Mr. Robinson first directed and performed both in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story ( playing Peter opposite the gifted young actor Danny Belrose, noted for his critically-praised performances during the late 90s and early 2000s at Chicago's Trap Door Theatre, as Jerry ) and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night ( playing James Tyrone, Sr. opposite the wonderful character actress Suzette Sutton as Mary Tyrone and the fine young actors Carl William Rapp, Jr. and Ben Young playing James, Jr. and Edmund, and the skilled young actress Amy Mohme as Cathleen ) in the effective, intimate confines of Cummel's Cafe on Washington in Downtown St. Louis!

Though Mr. Robinson had directed scripts, including his own original material in Chicago and elsewhere, he did not really evolve as a play director until he worked with his solidly committed group of company members in St. Louis!

"Danielle Gordon, playing the wife Mary, is a marvel. O'Neill wrote his mother into this play, and Gordon gives a sustained, quality performance that is unique and fulfilling as the lady who must accept her drug addiction because without it, life, as a woman following a "famous actor," has offered nothing real in pleasure." -- Lawrence Dunn, The Chicago Citizen, August 7, 1997.

That said, Mr. Robinson was often delighted by audiences' responses to his multiracial Chicago productions because he had the experience of trying ( and sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing! ) to get the works absolutely right in St. Louis!

 

 

 

 

"Highly-talented Robinson, who also directs the drama, plays James Sr. as larger than life - a vast ego of a man, continually speaking lines from his successful onstage appearances, driven by an over-weening professional ambition, a penchant to control his family, and a miserly streak so broad it is destroying them all. -- Beverly Friend, The Chicago Skyline, July 24, 1997.

 

It therefore was quite fulfilling for Mr. Robinson to see some critical praise given to his 1997 Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago revival staging of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night ( co-designed and co-produced by ESC Dramaturg and noted Chicago playwright Jeff Helgeson, which featured Mr. Robinson as James Tyrone, Sr. opposite gifted young actors Danielle Gordon as Mary Tyrone, Steven Wilson as James Tyrone, Jr., Joslyn Housely as Cathleen, and which was most certainly highlighted by the wonderful Ian Vogt's 1998 Joseph Jefferson Citation Award-Winning Performance as Outstanding Actor In A Supporting Role in A Play for his portrayal of Edmund ) staged at The Heartland Cafe Studio Theatre in Rogers Park.

 

https://www.newspapers.com/new...

https://www.playbill.com/artic...

https://playbill.com/article/c...

http://www.jeffawards.org/arch...

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1096...

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0901...

"Only Ian Vogt as the author's surrogate, Edmund, anchors his character in the hard-edged reality of a tubercular dreamer." -- Lawrence Bommer, The Chicago Reader, July 17, 1997.

 

 

 

 

Darryl Maximilian Robinson is truly grateful to each and every actor, actress, crew member and production associate for their fine and committed work with his multiracial, Non-Equity professional chamber theatres, The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago and Excaliber Productions, Ltd. In St. Louis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most recently, Director Darryl Maximilian Robinson was named a winner of a 2022 Making The World Happening Award from Allevents.in for his numerous online theatre-related offerings during the early years of The Covid-19 pandemic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read More

View Less