O'Neill's Long Stage Directions

O'Neill is known for his incredibly long stage directions and I love me a ridiculously long stage direction. When the characters enter he describes exactly how they look but not just how they look. He says things like, the mother was beautiful once but now she isn't beautiful. You look at her hands and you can see that she must have at one time have lovely hands but now they are, are arthritic. An actor really can't use these stage directions at all. There's nothing usable.