onStage Pittsburgh – Atmosphere and acting. Quantum Theatre’s wholehearted embrace of Eugene O’Neill’s last play blends the cricket-filled night of a wooded hill overlooking the Allegheny River with the moving performances of its leading cast — Melessie Clark, Wali Jamal, and Brett Mack.
L to R: Brett Mack, Wali Jamal, Allen Law, & Melessie Clark. Photo by Beth Barbis, courtesy Quantum Theatre.
Rounding out the cast are Allen Law as T. Stedman Harder, the Hogan’s neighbor, and Jordan Drake as Mike Hogan, Phil’s son who flees the farm.
Near the end of his life, O’Neill turned from the sweepingly ambitious dramas of the 1920s and ’30s that brought him the Nobel Prize (Strange Interlude included a dinner break) to intensely focused works inspired by his troubled family.
A Moon was first produced to negative reviews in 1947 and was shut down by Detroit police as “a slander on American motherhood.” It wasn’t until 1973 that the play received its most effective production and took its place among O’Neill’s finest.
Jamie Tyrone, based on the playwright’s older brother from Long Day’s Journey Into Night, is committing slow-motion suicide through alcoholism (O’Neill managed to recover from his liquor addiction). Jamie is a modestly successful actor in New York who returns to his Connecticut home in 1923 to deal with his late mother’s estate, which includes a piece of poor farmland.
The longtime tenants are the Hogans, Father Phil, and daughter Josie. Hogan’s sons have fled their abusive dad, leaving only Josie to keep him company. Director J. Cody Spellman has made a critical change to the play, casting the family as African-Americans rather than the shanty Irish characters of the original.
Josie Hogan is an unusual creation, a large, unattractive young woman who wields a wooden club. O’Neill describes her as 5-foot-11 and weighing 180 pounds. Melessie Clark’s Josie isn’t quite as big physically. Still, her performance at times dominates scenes as a “misbegotten” person fighting shame through fierce pride.
It seems that Josie and Tyrone, played by Brett Mack, love each other—a strange pairing since Josie claims she’s the town harlot. At the same time, Tyrone is reputed to have a collection of affairs with Broadway dancing girls and “a blonde pig,” an outdated term, to be sure. This play also uses the ancient word “nix” a few times.
Mack handles the difficult role of Jamie, a contradictory guy who slides from Catholic piety to drunken lust in a flash. He claims to want Josie but balks at sex with her because it’s “the aftermath that poisons you. I don’t want you to be poisoned. . .”
Wali Jamal, whose local career includes fine performances in all August Wilson’s plays, is a revelation as Phil Hogan, another O’Neill complex character who switches from a bragging bully to a caring father and friend of Jamie’s. Jamal brings humor to an otherwise somber, disturbing work.
The Hogans plan to manipulate the drunken Tyrone for money by setting up a seduction scene in their rundown cottage, which is the center stage of the play, artfully designed by Stephanie Mayer-Stanley.
Lighting designer C. Todd Brown adds a sense of natural light as the play moves from darkness to dawn, even though there was no moon the night I attended.
Brett Mack as James and Melessie Clark as Josie. Credit: Beth Barbis
A Moon can be a workout to follow O’Neill’s bumpy plot as Jamie and the Hogans manipulate each other through lies and changing characters. Is Josie really a loose woman or the virgin Tyrone wants her to be? Is he only interested in making money from the farm or helping the Hogans? Is Phil really the boozer he appears to be or sober enough to know what’s going on?
Finally, what are we to make of Jamie’s clinging love of his dead mother, certainly Oedipal in nature, and Josie’s desire to replace her?
Can A Moon For the Misbegotten be seen as a battle between dissolution and absolution in the larger sense or simply a play about O’Neill’s obsession to forgive his troubled family?
Again, atmosphere and acting. Both shine in Quantum’s latest production.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
A Moon For The Misbegotten by Eugene O’Neill, produced by Quantum Theatre at Longue Vue Country Club, runs through August 25, 2024
For tickets, visit https://www.quantumtheatre.com or 412-362-1713.
