[caption id="attachment_70549" align="alignright" width="600" caption="Kim Martin-Cotten (Josie Hogan) and Dan Daily (Phil Hogan) in the “A Moon For the Misbegotten.”"]
“A Moon For the Misbegotten” * By Eugene O’Neill * The Pearl Theatre Company * Through April 15
“A Moon For the Misbegotten,” completed in 1943, was Eugene O’Neill’s final play, and the birth wasn’t easy. It opened on tour on Feb. 20, 1947, at the Hartman Theater in Columbus, Ohio, but closed before reaching New York
In 1957, a subsequent production played 68 performances before closing for lack of audiences.
The play’s failure broke the playwright’s heart. It wasn’t produced successfully until 20 years after O’Neill died in 1953. The l973 production, directed by Jose Quintero, starred Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards.
The problem with the play, it must be admitted, lies with the playwright, at least in part.
In Josie Hogan, O’Neill had created one of the finest characters of his career, a powerful woman physically and emotionally at least the equal of her three brothers and her domineering father. For a time, it was thought that the part was uncastable. If the Josie Hogan is right, the play works. If not, not.
Fortunately, the new production at the Pearl Theatre Company, which will run through April has a superb Josie in the person of Kim Martin-Cotten, who has appeared on a New York stage only once before her current assignment. That previous appearance took place when she replaced Lily Rabe for a week as Portia opposite Al Pacino in the Broadway production of “The Merchant of Venice.”
The cast directed by the Pearl’s Artistic Director, J.R. Sullivan, is strong from top to bottom, with Dan Daily, a stalwart member of the Pearl’s Resident Acting Company, giving a particularly resonant performance as Josie’s bullying father, Phil Hogan, and Andrew May, making his New York debut, a standout as the doomed James Tyrone, Jr.
James Tyrone, Jr., of course, first appears in O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” By the time of “A Moon For the Misbegotten,” Tyrone is a self-loathing, hopeless alcoholic, eager to die and escape the pain of his life.
The play is frequently trimmed, but Sullivan’s production gives us every word, with the result that, despite having begun at 7:30, it doesn’t end until nearly 11 p.m.
In a production centering on a performance as rich and as detailed as actress Martin-Cotten’s wonderful Josie Hogan, you’ll be grateful for every moment. Resident Acting Company member Sean McNall registers as Mike Hogan, the last of Josie’s brothers to escape his father’s tyranny with his sister’s help.
Kern McFadden scores as T. Stedman Harder, the wealthy representative of the oil company that owns the land on which the Hogans rent their modest farmstead.
