A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN. To 23 December.
London
A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN
by Eugene O’Neill
Old Vic To 23 December 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 3hr One interval
TICKETS: 08870 060 6628/0870 534 4444 (£2.50 per transaction on both)
www.oldvictheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 October
Long night’s journey to the dawn is not a moment too long.
Despite having 5 characters this is essentially a 3-hander, set on the Irish-descended Hogans’ Connecticut farm, rented from landlord Jim Tyrone; Mike Hogan and neighbouring landowner Harder appear only briefly in act one, a prelude to the great symphonic sweep after the interval.
Here the ramshackle Hogan home, in Bob Crowley’s set all planks patched with corrugated metal, is no longer offset by the baked-looking land around, a space interrupted only by rusting farm implements and a well which is the sole source of freshness and energy. The place is transformed by moonlight before recovering its mundane morning self.
This central act’s a Tristan und Isolde of the emotionally tangled, of 2 characters unable to reconcile their love with their lives. Unlike Wagner’s lovers, there’s no love-potion to release feelings and when dawn arrives, with Jim’s head, asleep, in Josie Hogan’s lap, it brings inevitable goodbyes.
Jim’s the last of the family from O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Like his father, he’s an actor; Josie can only imagine his Broadway life. Yet it’s closer to nightmare than dream for him. What should be a night of true love’s complicated by Josie’s belief Jim’s going to sell them out as landlord. Her discovery this isn’t so is brings her an expansive thrill which, in Wagner, would occasion a rush of liberating leitmotifs.
While Josie’s handling love and revenge, Jim deals with his alcohol-faulted memory, the confusion and guilt of a serial drinker. Kevin Spacey occasionally makes this indeterminedly flickering mind’s transitions seem too calculated in the sudden changes of vocal quality, but the moments of playfulness and quarter-hours of despondency are aptly charted.
And Colm Meaney, as Josie’s calculating, hooch-downing father Phil, gives a lived-in performance. However down-at-heel this family, life’s laid out for comfort, down to the decaying armchair stuck outside for Phil to collapse into. Howard Davies is at his scrupulous best in clarifying the complex emotional track of O’Neill’s writing while Eve Best’s Josie, deep in passion, dynamic, movement implied even in stillness is magnificently convincing. Three hours is not a moment too long for all this.
Josie Hogan: Eve Best
Mike Hogan: Eugene O’Hare
Phil Hogan: Colm Meaney
Jim Tyrone: Kevin Spacey
T Stedman Harder: Billy Carter
Director: Howard Davies
Designer: Bob Crowley
Lighting: Paule Constable
Sound: Christopher Shutt
Music: Dominic Muldowney
Costume: Lynette Morris
2006-10-04 12:01:51