JOURNEY ACROSS A
DARK
SEA
: A REVIEW OF “MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN”(Eugene O’Neill)
by Cynthia Greenwood
Yesterday morning (Monday Oct 9th) I headed
off to London to see the evening performance of "Moon". London
looked beautiful as it always does to me. I strolled through the Peace Garden
in Tavistock Square, where people who died in wars are remembered. It reminded
me that I’m going to give a talk on the First World War poet Wilfred Owen
soon to a creative writing group that I belong to. Then I went to the Royal
Academy and saw an exhibition of modern American art. I was happy with these
distractions as I was getting apprehensive about seeing the play. The reviews
had apparently been good though I hadn’t read any as I don’t read them
till after I’ve seen a performance. Would the play and Kevin’s performance
live up to my expectations ----- ?
"Moon" is not a play which depends
on plot or incident so much as on the tense and many-layered relationships
between the three main characters. In fact the concept behind the play is
deeply personal and moving. The programme tells us that Eugene O’Neill was
trying to bring back to life his alcoholic brother as the character Jim Tyrone
in the play. He was attempting to give him, through the leading female
character Josie, the love and redemption that he could not give him while he
was alive. This is worked out as a tormented journey from the start of the
play to the end, a slice out of the lives of damaged people which has an
apocalyptic power about it.
The set is a battered farm house, run-down and
leaning, with farm land all around stressing the isolation of the characters.
The lighting is strong and strange - a brilliant, oppressive blue for night
and a hot, almost decaying orange for the dawn which emphasizes the tensions
within the characters and could also, by it’s almost surreal character,
suggest the much broader themes of destruction, life, and redemption in the
play. There is a notable lingering on moonlight itself when Josie waits for
hours for Jim to meet her and the stage is lovingly suffused by a varying pale
and chilly light. At first we think this is indeed the moon of lovers’
dreams but the light becomes increasingly cold as the audience waits with
Josie. We have to remember that the moon is changeable. It may be called upon
by people to feed their dreams but it is also the chilly, detached watcher of
our despair.
The choreography throughout is remarkably
tight and the movement of characters on the stage and the spaces between them
echo the tensions within them. We are often unsure when a character will
arrive on stage or leave it and we become anxious. Will Jim come to meet Josie
in the moonlight? Will Josie’s father leave so that Josie and Jim can be
alone? This tension effectively emphasizes the main verbal anxieties between
the characters.
The first act of the play suggests to the
viewer that it may develop into a romantic comedy . There are a number of
amusing lines as Josie watches her last brother leave the farm and duels
verbally with her father. When Jim appears he adds to the wit and he and Josie
exchange tender glances. These moments are achieved with moving subtlety by
both actors. At this stage we do get the feeling that the two of them are
alike in some ways and could have a relationship. Hogan’s plotting and the
problem of the sale of the land seem like a comic underplot in an old
fashioned romance with an attractive if eccentric heroine and a captivating
though flawed hero. It is possible that O’Neill himself so longed to give
his brother tender surroundings and love that at the beginning he was wanting
to make a comedy or romance of his story. Did he realise at last that he could
never redeem his brother unless he accepted what he was and had the courage to
go into the darkness with him and therefore this play must in some sense be a
tragedy?
So what of the acting? Well, I felt all the
cast including the minor parts of Mike Hogan and Harder were superbly played
and the acting of everyone was on the same high level. But Eve Best and Kevin
Spacey gave such towering performances of overwhelming power and honesty that
I was stunned. Eve is warm and capable, trying always to be brave and
reasonable and certainly giving the impression by her ability to turn her hand
to all things that she is indeed a farmer’s daughter. We feel that her
tendency to be strong and controlling is caused by her isolated and sometimes
dangerous life and her need to assert herself in a household of men. In the
programme Kevin makes a comment about the director, Howard Davies’s ability
to support him in exploring the part, "If I am out there in the dark
waters, he is my anchor and dock. I know I can tie my boat up with him".
I feel this image of the sea is peculiarly appropriate for the tempestuous
emotions seen in the play. Both Jim and Josie’s emotions ebb and flow like
waves of the sea, Josie’s with a quieter rhythm than that of Jim’s
towering terrors. Her humanity is always there. And Kevin? Well, what can I
say . Kevin showed wonderfully how his feelings were disconnected, shifting
turbulently from one mood to the next just as they might in an alcoholic and a
man haunted by guilt. There is an underlying detachment about him that
perfectly conveys a personality damaged by years of drink and guilt which sees
things as through a glass window, feeling everything yet unable to touch
anything. It is so poignant when he touches Josie’s face and talks of her
beautiful eyes yet cannot somehow reach her. Time and again his guilt and
confusion rise then ebb before Josie’s offer of comfort only to rise again
in a great, terrible wave.. He lurches so convincingly from tenderness to
violence that I was almost afraid of him. But all the time there is a
heartrending subtle undercurrent of fine bits of a personality that are
unrealised. His clever wit and humour and his real gentleness are there and
perhaps most of all his almost telepathic understanding of what Josie is.
These broken bits of him seemed to float like flotsam on those dark waters.
The arguments between the pair ebb and flow with such force that it seems to
be not just a domestic tragedy but an apocalyptic statement about the human
condition. Kevin produces so many subtly moving moments, but one of the most
moving bits for me was when he recites snatches of poetry (Keats’ "Ode
to a Nightingale" being one) so beautifully and you became even more
aware what a potentially sensitive mind and personality is being destroyed.
Again, I’ll never forget how he turns back to Josie at the end saying
"I do remember". Then they kiss – the first kiss of real feeling
but Jim is clutching his hat and coat in his hand and he must go. One
excellent aspect of the piece is that sentimentality is avoided. The acting is
forceful, terrible, poignant, tender, honest above all things, but never
sentimental. This honesty and the violent ebb and flow of feeling made the
audience totally caught up in the lives of the characters and you could have
heard a pin drop in the theatre. It seemed that the most important thing in
the world was Jim and Josie’s fate in their dark ocean.
At the end a lot of people in the theatre were
in tears or very shaken. The cast ran on the stage, Kevin looking very pale
but smiling. He seemed still full of energy. The audience gave them two
standing ovations and cheered. On leaving the theatre everything seemed quite
unreal to me – the real world was Jim and Josie’s world! I finally got a
taxi back to where I was staying - a very quiet bed and breakfast
establishment. It was strange the way my head was full of a storm of emotions
that felt like a real thunderstorm while all the rooms, staircases and my own
bedroom were so quiet! Now I’ve got home I feel I’ve left something
important in the Old Vic! My heart, perhaps --- well, enough of that! The
power of art should not be underestimated!
In conclusion, everyone who can should try to
see this production. Even if you don’t care for Kevin you’ll be amazed at
the power of the piece and the acting and if you do care for him you’ll be
stunned at his performance .All hail a great director, Howard Davies! As well
as being a production of great honesty and artistic integrity it is a fine
tribute to Eugene O’Neill who seems to have faced terrible misfortunes with
courage and to have tried to use his art to redeem and exorcise demons. The
towering humanity and vulnerability of his characters must leave you in awe of
his achievement. You will feel humbled and you will learn important things
about the human experience.
Cynthia, Manchester, England
~
My Moon Journal
by Fan
Went to London to see A Moon for the
Misbegotten during its preview week. The flight coming back was delayed for 3
½ hours at Heathrow. (Ah, all the things we do for Kevin, lol...)
Now let me talk about the play. It's a
stunning production. FYI, there are
spoilers in this message.
The set is exquisite and romantic. There is
haunting music in the background and, occasionally, you hear the sound of
train coming and going. The stage is very deep, twice as deep as most
productions I have seen. In fact, the Old Vic stage is so big that it's enough
for musicals.
You can see Jamie coming on the road in the
back when he first appears, "like a dead man walking behind his own
coffin" says Josie. In fact, a few times you see Jamie walking, or
smoking, alone, in the background, like a ghost lost his way home.
Josie is very energetic. She is a tall,
strong, rough and healthy farm girl. Her hair is messy and her cheeks rosy.
Her voice is strong and beautiful.
Jamie has a very charming and funny opening
scene with the Hogans. He seems to be sober but is always thirsty for a drink.
Jamie is elegantly dressed, in a summer suit, charismatic. While Josie enjoys
talking rough with her father and brother, Jamie likes to quote poetry from
time to time. Jamie has a great sense of humor. Somehow, there is this
lifelessness in his character that you can sense almost immediately. Josie
says kissing Jamie is "like kissing the corpse." She is very
passionate and energetic and will kiss and hug Jamie whenever she has a
chance. But Jamie doesn’t respond. It's heartbroken to watch Josie trying to
offer love and life to Jamie, but Jamie is just not interested in life
anymore. Jamie rejects her out of his love for her. He is afraid that his
grief and anger will "poison" her and "stay poisoned." You
can't find love nobler than this.
The play is 3 hours long and you wish it would
never end, despite the fact that it must be 90 degrees inside the Old Vic that
week.
Jamie doesn't come on for the first 30
minutes. Josie is on stage during the entire play but she didn't seem tired.
Kevin seemed very emotional at the end. His eyes were red at the curtain call.
My favorite scene is, of course, Act III,
Jamie's confession to Josie. It is so DRAMATIC. Kevin sometime shouted like a
mad man and sometimes cried like a child. I never knew there could be grief
and anger to such level. I was so stunned that I felt I was turning into a
stone right there.
Jamie's emotion is tremendous. At one point,
Josie was so frightened while Jamie shouted at her. Then she offered comfort
to Jamie, as his mother would have done. They spent the night under the
moonlight, with Jamie cried into sleep, in Josie's arms. That scene was so
moving, like Michelangelo's statue Pieta.
I did watch one rather "odd"
performance once. On that night, Josie didn't seem to be connecting with Jamie
consistently. When Jamie poured his sorrow to her, she was not
"listening" I dare to say. During Jamie's confession, at the height
of his grief, he
collapsed in her arms. But that one night,
Kevin almost fell on the floor. Josie barely caught him. And instead of
letting Jamie sleep in her arms, she was barely holding his head. But then the
following night, Josie's performance was different. She was "there"
all along, if you know what I mean.
I must say I'm very satisfied with the
production. There are other interesting moments. For example, when Josie tried
to hide her feelings and appeared indifferent about Jamie, she received this
typical Spacey look from Jamie, as if saying "I know you're lying."
Another moment, close to the end, after Jamie had left and Josie knew she
would never see him again. She was talking to her father as if she didn’t
care. Then suddenly, she cried out "father, I love him." I cried at
that moment. And I had never cried at any theatre before.
I did some homework before I went to the show.
I always want to know the context of a story whenever I can. So before heading
to London, I read a few O'Neill biographies and it proved to be a valuable
preparation. A Moon is heavily based on O'Neill's older brother Jamie's life.
Kevin himself is an O'Neill scholar and he is often quoted in O'Neill's
biographies. His portrait of Jim Tyrone brings the context of what happened
before and after the night with Josie.
Jim Tyrone is not just a wasted drunk but a
man once had ideals. In fact, both O'Neill brothers were well educated. Their
father once said, a $35,000 education prepared his sons for a $35 a week
paycheck. In the play, Jim would quote poetry from time to time.
Sometimes Kevin does it in a funny way but
sometimes poetry brings him nightmare.
The first scene when Jim meets Josie is very
seductive. The look he gives Josie is like he can see through her. Josie
bluffs a lot in front of him but never for a moment could she fool him. From
the way Jim looks at her, the way he casually touches her hair, you get a
feeling that Jim indeed loves her very very much. This is particularly
satisfying to watch as I always wanted to see Kevin Spacey in a love story. A
Moon for the Misbegotten is everything I imagined and could hope for.
Fan
October 9, 2006 - Stage door pics here.
More
fan reviews and stage door stories.
