Lange & Dance Bring Long Day to Lyric, 21 Nov

The revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, starring Jessica Lange and Charles Dance, has confirmed its West End venue and opening date. The eagerly awaited production will open at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, on 21 November 2000.

Lange made her West End debut in 1996 as Blanche Dubois in a sell-out production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. However, she is best known for her films, which include The Postman Always Rings Twice, A Thousand Acres, Rob Roy, Cape Fear, Crimes of the Heart and Sweet Dreams. The actress won Academy awards for her performances in Blue Sky and Tootsie

O'Neill's 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama tells the story of a family on the edge, with a druggie mother, penny-pinching father and alcoholic son. Lange plays the mother, Mary Tyrone (played by Katherine Hepburn in Sidney Lumet's 1962 film version), whose addiction becomes incurable after her actor husband (Dance) hires a quack doctor.

Like Lange, Dance is an accomplished stage actor though best known for his films, including Hilary and Jackie, Michael Collins, China Moon, Last Action Hero, White Mischief and Plenty. He made a critically acclaimed return to the theatre last year in the Donmar Warehouse revival of CP Taylor's Nazi morality tale, Good.

Long Day's Journey into Night will be directed by British director Robin Phillips who was, for six years, the artistic director of Canada's Stratford Festival, where he last directed the O'Neill classic in 1980.

The Fanny Burney Regency comedy A Busy Day is currently playing at the Lyric. It will finish its run early, on 2 September, after which the theatre will house a limited season of A Brief Encounter, based on David Lean's classic 1946 film, from 11 September.

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