Review of: A Moon for the Misbegotten

A Moon for the Misbegotten is something of a sequel to Long Day's Journey into Night; being the third part of Eugene O'Neill's autobiographic trilogy (having begun with The Iceman Cometh). Jim Tyrone (Kevin Spacey), the alcoholic son of James Tyrone (and modeled on O'Neill's own brother) visits the Connecticut property that his father has owned for years. The property has been looked after by the shanty Irishman Phil Hogan (Colm Meaney) and his slattern, unattractive daughter, Josie (Eve Best). Both fear that Jim's visit is a sign that he means to sell the property to a wealthy New Yorker who has been buying up property in the area. That Jim is a spendthrift and a wastrel just adds to their suspicions. Phil hatches a plan whereby Josie will get Jim drunk and get him to marry her; thereby keeping the property in the "family". Phil also knows that Josie has secretly been carrying a torch for Jim for years.
Emotional honesty has been the core of O'Neill's work from his early work, The Hairy Ape to his last play, A Touch of the Poet.

A Moon for the Misbegotten is basically actionless, a play about the lies we use to cover the despairing core of everyday life. Despite Josie's romantic self-delusions and Jim's guilty, alcoholic secret, O'Neill pushes these two misfits together until on one fateful evening, they are forced to strip away their comforting layers of fantasy.
Everything about Moon is writ large. This huge expressive terrain is compellingly rendered by Bob Crowley's off-kilter house set against an expansive blue sky and Mark Henderson's evocative lighting slowly slides from sundown into a moon-lit evening. But, it is the larger than life characters that propel the story into our hearts. Unfortunately, no one in Howard Davies anxious production seems up to the task.
Eve Best a slight, intense actress spends too much of the evening trying to get Josie's physical mannerisms correct (more than once, Josie is referred to as a cow). Lumbering around the stage in oversized work boots, frailing her arms as she works the water pump, shouting and braying, one can feel the strain of trying to make the part fit. It is a valiant if unsuccessful attempt. Meanwhile as Jim, Kevin Spacey twitches and motor-mouths his way through the part as if Jim has a perpetual case of the DT's. As Phil, Meaney comes off a little better but has little sense of compassion for his daughter.

Thankfully, both Best and Spacey soften their mannered performances for the penultimate scene in Act II where Jim bears his soul to Josie seeking both redemption and solace. As both calm down, the beauty of O'Neill's tragic poetry shines through as the audience is finally able to catch it's breathe. It's the one true moment of the evening and a brief glimpse of how Davies' production might have succeeded had he had a tighter grip on his performers. Instead of being heart wrenching, A Moon for the Misbegotten ends up being just wrenching.

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