Director Timofey Kulyabin Stages Long Day’s Journey into Night at TNRS

The acclaimed Berlin-based director Timofey Kulyabin is staging Long Day’s Journey into Night at the Radu Stanca National Theatre Sibiu (TNRS), based on a script by Roman Doljanski after Eugene O’Neill. The preview and the official premiere are scheduled for March 29 and 30, at 5:00 PM, in the Main Hall. Tickets are available at www.tnrs.ro and at the Theatre Box Office in Sibiu.

The cast includes Nicu Mihoc, Raluca Iani, Marius Turdeanu, Horia Fedorca, Radu Costea, Ioana Cosma, Adrian Neacșu, David Cristian, and Vlad Robaș.

“It is a great joy to have Timofey Kulyabin in Sibiu—he who came, together with John Malkovich and Ingeborga Dapkunaite, to FITS in the summer of 2024 with In the Solitude of Cotton Fields, a performance that sold out in just a few minutes. Also within FITS, in 2018, he presented Three Sisters, an exceptional creation with a strong impact on audiences. With an impressive portfolio of productions across Europe, Timofey Kulyabin has chosen one of the most beautiful texts of the 20th century—Long Day’s Journey into Night. We eagerly await the premiere at the end of March and wish all spectators from Sibiu, Romania, and around the world who come to see the performance to enjoy this unique team and such an important project,” said Constantin Chiriac, General Manager of TNRS and President of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival.

 

The play Long Day’s Journey into Night was written by Eugene O’Neill based on memories from his own youth. It is no coincidence that the playwright requested the play not be published until 25 years after his death. Although this wish was not fulfilled, the reason for the restriction is clear—the world-renowned author shared deeply personal memories about his family, none of whom, except for himself, were alive at the time the play was written. And although the play centers on the day he received a fatal diagnosis, he was the only character who survived—and went on to become famous worldwide. This story about people bound by closeness—who love and torment one another, accuse and justify themselves, remember and suffer—has become one of the most popular works in the global repertoire. It contains both magnificent roles and a bitter, sometimes hopeless, sense of the passage of time, of disappointment, and of helplessness in the face of death.

Timofey Kulyabin’s production transposes the action into the present day. Nevertheless, the autobiographical nature of Eugene O’Neill’s work is fully preserved. We encounter the author’s alter ego, the writer Edmund Tyrone, at the very end of his life. Like the playwright, he has become a celebrity, a recipient of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. Like the playwright, he cannot free himself from the painful and obsessive memories of his parents and older brother. We see Edmund Tyrone on the final evening of his life, when his own “long day turns into night.” Unwilling to endure physical suffering—as modern civilization becomes increasingly autonomous in matters of life and death—he does not fear emotional pain and, in his final hours, wishes to be once again with those long departed, not only to remember them, but to try to understand them, to forgive them, and to ask for their forgiveness.

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LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

A screenplay by Roman Doljanski 

After Eugene O’Neill

Directed by Timofei Kuliabin 

Scenography Oleg Golovko

Music Timofei Pastukhov

Light design Ilia Pașnin

Translation Raluca Rădulescu

Project managers Claudia Maior și Ioana Nistorescu

Conductor and assistant director Ania Petrean

 

Cast: Nicu Mihoc, Raluca Iani, Marius Turdeanu, Horia Fedorca, Radu Costea, Ioana Cosma, Adrian Neacșu, David Cristian, Vlad Robaș.