It's hard to imagine why the Broadway premiere of this searing, beautiful play was received with such indifference. Its first production in 1947 was a disaster for many reasons and withdrawn from a planned Broadway debut; but the apparently fine 1957 revival with the splendid cast of Wendy Hiller, Cyril Cusack and Franchot Tone left few O'Neill admirers convinced that this was one of his best plays, and it ran for only 68 performances. Not until the legendary 1973 Broadway revival directed by Jose Quintero and starring Colleen Dewhurst, Jason Robards Jr. and Ed Flanders was A Moon For the Misbegotten recognized as a masterpiece. Even now it is considered a very difficult work to produce, not least because the stage directions describe Josie Hogan as "so oversize for a woman that she is almost a freak -- five foot eleven in her stockings and weighs about one hundred and eighty," and also because it combines a poetic tragedy with surprisingly raunchy humor for a drama set on a New England farm and written almost 70 years ago.
Quintero, Robards, and Dewhurst were such admired and acknowledged O'Neill specialists that their version was televised and rebroadcast and considered definitive despite both lead actors being too old for their roles in 1973. But the comparison to O'Neill's greatest classic, Long Day's Journey Into Night, which premiered less than a year before Moon on Broadway may have contributed to its lack of appreciation, just as Quintero's repute as original director and Robards' as Jamie in Journey helped that later revival of Moon For the Misbegotten. In both plays, James Tyrone Jr. represents James O'Neill Jr., Eugene O'Neill's older brother, but Jim is not the same character here as Jamie; he is more assured and less bitter, but he is also older, more "dead inside" and almost nobly tragic. This is Eugene O'Neill's farewell to his brother, and it is unquestionably a loving one.
The Shaw Festival's only previous O'Neill effort was of his only full-length comedy, Ah, Wilderness!. Tragedy has hardly been this great company's forte. And this is a play that I love and have demanding standards for. So I was unprepared for this absolutely successful production. Joseph Ziegler's perfectly balanced direction maintains a true sense of realism throughout, tickles with its recognition of the play's many comic moments but never overplays them, captures the promise of romantic magic between Jim and Josie but does not mislead us to expect any fulfillment, and lets Jim's exposure of his haunted, burnt-out spirit emerge with a terrible shock despite its foreshadowing. The notable release of the audience's angst when the heartbroken Josie and her saddened father return to their former joking banter after Jim's tragic exit is achieved but not disconcertingly manipulated.
Jim Mezon dominates more than any Phil Hogan I can remember in a florid but masterfully controlled performance, often hilarious but especially fine-tuned for his final part-real, part-pretended drunkenness that never masks a father's loving disappointment and bitterness over lost hopes. David Jansen is a more ordinary Jim Tyrone than most, not quite the wreck of a man we expect, but his anguish becomes palpable in the final scenes, and he seems invested in the role unassailably. And Jenny Young, whose work I'm not familiar with, is a marvel as Josie, believably powerful and awkward, her character's inner beauty never in question, movingly and authentically inhabiting this great role.
Billy Lake and Patrick McManus are fine in supporting roles. Christina Poddubiak's wonderfully detailed designs are entirely right. And Louise Guinand's exquisitely varied lighting designs seem inspired. This is theater operating at its highest level and a production that should not be missed.
