Pittsburgh Owlscribe – Anticipating my Quantum Theatre outing to Verona to catch its current production of A Moon for the Misbegotten, I rummaged the Internet to find something informative about the play. What I came across was the 1975 film on YouTube of the play staring Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards.
Deciding to give Eugene O’Neill’s 1945 opus a look, I watched a gleeful first segment of the play and couldn’t help chuckling at the witty repartee that took place between a crusty old Irish American farmer and his high-spirited buxom daughter.
With the skill of spewing rapid rapier rebounds that rolled off their tongues like water flowing down a creek after a thunderstorm, I wondered why their verbal talents hadn’t secured them a loftier place in life than the rock scrabble Connecticut farm that kept them living at a subsistence level. My appreciation of their wit came to an end when I decided to shut off the telly for the night and resume watching the following day.
To my surprise, the tone of the drama had abruptly turned when I decided to pick back up where I left off. The laughs now turned to soul wrenching drama when the liquor drenched landlord shows up and sets into motion an evening of emotional upheaval as deeply hidden secrets and stifling guilt are dredged to the surface.
With much anticipation, I headed over to Verona one splendid summer evening and arrived at the tony Long Vue Club, perched high above the Allegheny. The weather was perfect for the outdoor staging as chirping crickets and the rumble of a distant train helped set the aural background of the stage, a cleverly designed facsimile of a rustic cabin, open enough to give the audience a glimpse of the homespun furniture and farmstead trappings of the Hogan family inside. Credit scenic designer, Stephanie Mayer-Staley for some fine work in this regard.
When the play opens, we find Josie Hogan (Melessie Clark) encouraging Mike, (Jordan Drake) the youngest of her three brothers, to escape from his humdrum, no future existence on the farm and join his brothers seeking a better life in the city.
With just seconds to spare, the lad starts his journey just before his grizzled father, Phil (Wali Jamal) arrives as cantankerous as ever. With delightful back and forth, give and take, father and daughter hurl amusing, often hilarious harangues and fulminations, at one another.
L to R: Brett Mack, Wali Jamal, Allen Law, & Melessie Clark. Photo by Beth Barbis, courtesy Quantum Theatre.
Their verbal fireworks reach a climax with the arrival of the neighboring farmer, T. Steadman Harder (a dapperly dressed Allen Law) whose quarrel about the Hogan’s pigs invading his ice pond ends up with him thrown to the ground amid insults flung at him by both father and daughter.
Clark is both physically and emotionally strong enough to rebuff her crotchety father’s verbal assaults. Capable of giving him tit for tat, she hides a deep vulnerability she tries to disguise. Phil, her father, on the other hand, is adept at scheming and manipulation, always looking for ways to hoodwink those he encounters when the need arises.
As a pair, Clark and Jamal play off one another with an uncanny realism. Later in the play, Phil shows his softer side allowing his love for his daughter to shine through his tough demeanor.
As Josie, Clark seems to live in her character, and her facial expressions and body posturing convey a talent for dramatic authenticity. The scene where she’s moved to tears is very convincing and deeply felt.
Brett Mack as James and Melessie Clark as Josie. Credit: Beth Barbis
Fortunately, Quantum staff found the right actor to play her love interest in Brett Mack as the profligate, alcoholic and deeply troubled James Tyrone, Jr. A full moon requires a romance, even though the one O’Neill creates is complex, convoluted and tangled.
Left together one blissfully moonlit night (kudos to lighting designer, C. Todd Brown), the couple bare their souls to one another. Back and forth they vacillate between transparency and the need to regress into surface emotions and superficial personalities. In between, Mack, who has one of the most alluring and sonorous of voices, performs his character’s emotional meltdown so well I couldn’t help but compare it to Jason Robard’s in the film with Mack coming out on top.
Clark does a remarkable job segueing into a wise and motherly comforter who allows her tortured suitor one night of peace and restfulness. After baring his soul, complete with his own mournful moments, James buries his head in her lap sleeps contentedly throughout the night.
Logically, you might suspect that the play ends in the traditional happily ever after scenario, but O’Neill’s genius goes further, much further. The epilogue might not be to everyone’s liking, but it has its own scintillating beauty, a melancholy resonance that caps the play with the quietude and calmness that’s the essence of atonement and redemption.
In the Q and A, meet the artists talk that followed, director J. Cody Spellman asked the crowd what they felt at the end of the play. Before I could offer up my own sentiment, someone else in the audience beat me to the punch. I did quelch my answer but wished I could have spoke the word peace, just to see if others in the audience shared the same feeling of what Aristote once described as dramatic catharsis. It’s just like going to confession, but without all those Hail Marys.
A Moon for the Misbegotten, a Quantum Theatre production, is at Longue Vue Club, 400 Longue Vue Drive, in Verona through August 25. For tickets, go to www.quantumtheatre.com.
