Succession star Brian Cox, who plays mogul Logan Roy in the HBO family drama, is to take on the role of another imposing patriarch on stage in London.
The Scottish actor will appear in a new production of Eugene O’Neill’s play Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by Jeremy Herrin. He takes on the role of the fading performer James Tyrone whose family is wrecked by addiction, bitter rage and denial. Cox said it had long been an ambition of his to play the “flawed” lead and that he was “delighted to have the opportunity to do so on a West End stage”. He added: “I’m a great admirer of Jeremy Herrin’s work and I am looking forward to us delving into O’Neill’s masterpiece together.”
Herrin said: “It’s the privilege of a lifetime to direct one of our finest actors in one of the greatest plays ever written. The peerless Brian Cox as James Tyrone is a match for the ages, and a wonderful opportunity to create a deeply moving and cathartic piece of the theatre.”
The venue and opening date of the production have not yet been announced. In October, Cox will play the composer Johann Sebastian Bach in The Score, a new play by Oliver Cotton, directed by Trevor Nunn at Theatre Royal Bath.
Cox has long combined careers on stage and screen. He won an Olivier award in 1984 for Rat in the Skull at the Royal Court and another in 1988 for a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Titus Andronicus. It was an O’Neill play, Strange Interlude, that brought him his Broadway debut in 1985.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night opened on Broadway in 1956, three years after O’Neill’s death. It was awarded the Pulitzer prize in 1957. O’Neill modelled the character of James Tyrone on his own father. The part was played in the West End in 2018 by Jeremy Irons.
