Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Moon for the Misbegotten

2016; Penn State University Press; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/eugeoneirevi.37.2.305

2161-4318

Richard P. Hayes,

Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research

A Moon for the Misbegotten is infrequently produced in Europe. This is not a surprise, for the play is among O'Neill's most challenging, both for players and audiences: it is long, wordy, and largely lacking in dramatic incident; it changes register quite markedly part way through; and, particularly in the shape of the role of Josie, it makes enormous demands on actors. Ben Barnes, former artistic director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin (the Abbey of course was a great influence on O'Neill) and now director of the Theatre Royal in Waterford, Ireland, spoke in a post-show discussion, after the first preview, of the thrill of setting oneself and one's team against these challenges, of testing one's talent against such a difficult play. Emerging successfully from a test against late O'Neill is a mark of real maturity for a director, actor, or designer. A Moon for the Misbegotten is a challenge Barnes, designer Joe Vanek, and the actors meet admirably: this production is very fine indeed.Vanek has worked with Barnes before and is known for the design work he has done on productions of Brian Friel's plays, including the Tony Award–winning Dancing at Lughnasa, among others. His set for A Moon for the Misbegotten draws heavily on the paintings of American realist Andrew Wyeth; certainly the palette for the setting here is predominantly in shades of sepia, with virtually no primary colors enlivening the external features of the Hogan farmhouse. More interesting is the fact that Vanek acknowledges (if not quotes) the experimental vein in O'Neill's work that came to the surface in the 1920s and was merely suppressed, rather than discarded, in his late plays; that is, the set is clearly expressionistic in design and points toward the technique of The Hairy Ape and other plays from earlier in O'Neill's life. There is always in O'Neill a powerful sense of each work containing, rather than developing, previous works; A Moon for the Misbegotten “contains,” in this sense, the earlier expressionistic plays, as well as, among others, “Anna Christie” and, of course, Long Day's Journey Into Night, to which it is a form of sequel. Vanek's set is a guide to the audience on how to understand and engage with the second part of the play. It is understated but works brilliantly, negotiating successfully between the realism of the exchanges in the production's first section with Jim's “heebie jeebies” that are presented in full expressionist mode, with wailing voices, train sirens and the non-naturalistic lighting.Barnes has edited the play superbly; arguably, his cuts greatly help the play and certainly do not diminish it. Barnes has reshaped A Moon for the Misbegotten into a two-act drama, approximately two hours and a half in length, including one interval. The first act is shorter, less than an hour, and presents act 1 from the published version more or less intact. The cuts—substantial, yet subtle—are in acts 2–4, which are condensed to a solid ninety-minute piece from the beginning of the second act in the published version to the end. Re-presenting the play in this way allows for some interesting structural patterns to be emphasized. Mike's departure at the beginning is echoed by Jim's departure at the end. The first act is dominated by the skit with Harder and the story of the pigs breaking down Harder's fence. The second act also involves Jim's story of the woman he slept with on the train on the way back from his mother's funeral, whom he refers to venomously as a “pig” (“I didn't forget, even in that pig's arms,” he spits). These stories of two off-stage events reverberate off one another, opening out interesting parallels. Beginning the second act of the production with Hogan's drunken encounter with Josie (at the beginning of act 2 in the published version) gives momentum to the production's second half and one feels that the play benefits from this change of pace. Barnes spoke in the post-show discussion of flirting with including that scene from act 2 within the production's first half and of commencing the second half with the beginning of act 3, thus balancing the two halves, but he resisted this temptation—a decision clearly merited, for the production never gets bogged down in the difficult, intense and very long scene between Josie and Jim. In other words, there is no loss of effect with the overall tightening of the play—indeed, the play is improved by it.The acting is very good indeed, as is necessary with such a challenging play. Of the three principals, Donald Sage Mackay (James Tyrone) is slightly the weaker, his performance in the first act rather more casual than one would like. He appears in better shape than he should be for such a heavy drinker. He greatly improves in the second half and sustains the two-hander with Josie extremely effectively—so much so that some of his speeches in the second half are almost unbearably moving. His physical disintegration to the point where, in Josie's arms, he appears (in O'Neill's words) “Calm with the drained, exhausted peace of death” was brilliantly realized and utterly convincing. Mark Lambert (Phil Hogan) is an experienced actor and his comic timing is excellent. He dominates the first act, as required, and terrorizes Harder in an hilarious scene, but his doubts and, at the same time, his deep love for his daughter emerge in the second half and he is a strong, though not overpowering, presence throughout.The play stands and falls on the actress playing Josie, and Kate Forbes plays her with the required resilience and vulnerability: she is entirely credible throughout, whether she is sitting knees apart in boots peeling potatoes when the play opens, wielding a stick against her father, waiting pathetically with a flower in her hair for Jim to appear for their late-night date, or cradling him in her arms. Her inner torment surfaces when, as she plots to double-cross Jim with Hogan, she says, with a scarcely visible tremor, “If ever he was tempted to want me, he'd be ashamed of it,” or “It's a disgrace to his vanity, being caught with the likes of me”: she finds resolve in her self-hatred but that hatred never overwhelms her and she retains an inner solidity to the end.The production is a joint Ireland-America affair, arising from a city twinning initiative between Waterford, Ireland, and Rochester, New York. Mackay and Forbes are American; Lambert is Irish, and other Irish actors, Cillian Jacob (Mike Hogan) and Michael Quinlan (Harder), complete the cast. The play does not feel like an American play; the production's music, the softness and quality of the lighting, and Hogan's accent certainly all exaggerate the play's Irishness. Thus the play is of a piece with many Irish plays to do with land, inheritance, and the dispossession involved in the emigrant experience—not a surprise, as O'Neill's people (including his father James) emigrated from the southeast of Ireland in the 1850s. (Bogard, among others, has drawn attention to O'Neill's indebtedness to T.C. Murray's play Birthright in Beyond the Horizon for instance, where similar themes and ideas are explored, a debt also visible here: again, one has a sense that O'Neill's late plays “contain” rather than suppress the earlier.) The production is kinder than it might have been to drinkers; the sheer misery, the imprisonment, the horror is side-stepped, perhaps rightly—the play is abstract and in its second half does not need to be too close to reality.This is an excellent production indeed, thought-provoking for those familiar with the play, accessible to those who are not, finely acted, brilliantly staged, and a memorable, deeply affecting experience.