Review
A Touch Of The Poet
at Roundabout / Studio 54
December 1, 2006
by VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet is one of his lesser known works first produced some years after his death in 1956. While not in the same league as Iceman or Long Days’ Journey, Poet does contain some of his signature themes and melancholic poetry. The gnawing regret of lost opportunity and the self delusions used to cover that pain pervades all his work. In Poet, Cornelius (‘Con’) Melody owns a tavern outside of Boston. Yet he relives (and constantly re-imagines) an epic battle in which he once fought against the British for Irish independence. It has become the defining moment of his life and he has been slowly slipping into a self-pitying alcoholism ever since. He has adapted a veneer of upper class sensibility to cover the anger and shame of his impoverished circumstances and denigrates all around him. These include both his long suffering wife and his bitter, love-starved daughter. One afternoon, his illusions are cruelly up-ended.
Even though O’Neill is not at the top of his game here, there is no reason for the mediocrity of the production. The direction from Tony award winning Doug Hughes is cumbersome and prodding. The leading actresses Dearbhla Molloy and Emily Bergl are both miscast as con’s wife and daughter respectively (in Miss Bergl’s case, glaringly so). Gabriel Byrne tries valiantly to stir some life into the proceedings and actually does in the later stages of the play when Con has lost everything. His moments of facing the stark emptiness of his life contain all the monumental greatness that O’Neill requires. Byron Jennings and Kathryn Meisle show up all too briefly to supply some CPR but to little available. While one is grateful to see this neglected classic again; this production leaves one with the wish for a ‘touch’ of something better.
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