In 1956, the production of Long Day's Journey into Night by the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden won much praise for O'Neill. Potential producers soon pressured Carlotta O'Neill to release the work for an American staging, and after several months she turned the play over to Jose Quintero and two associates. Quintero's earlier revival of "Die Iceman Cometh, which opened in May of 1956, had already prompted new enthusiasm for O'Neill. His New York production of Long Day's Journey into Night, coupled with the play's publication by the Yale University Press, fully elevated O'Neill's reputation and restored him to the front ranks of American dramatists.

Leading critics like Brooks Atkinson, Walter Kerr, Harold Clurman, and Joseph Wood Krutch proclaimed the play's power on stage. Kerr, for example, in his review in the New York Herald Tribune, called the play "a stunning theatrical experience," while New York Times critic...