A Moon for the Misbegotten

Superb reproduction of one of the triumphant productions of the American theater. This production single-handedly put A Moon for the Misbegotten among Eugene O'Neill's best-loved and most-produced plays. Great work by three great actors who are unfortunately no longer with us, Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, and Ed Flanders.

Written in 1943, it took "A Moon for the Misbegotten" over 30 years to find its place as one of the most important works in the Eugene O'Neill canon. First produced on Broadway in 1958, the play was originally dismissed as second-rate O'Neill. It took the powerhouse 1974 revival directed by Jose Quintero and starring Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst and Ed Flanders to finally earn O'Neill's painful reminiscence about his brother Jamie, unforgettably introduced to audiences in "Long Days Journey Into Night," the deserved accolade of "masterpiece." The story is incidental: dirt farmers Josie and her father attempt to dupe their alcoholic landlord James Tyrone, Jr. into spending the night with Josie in the hopes of initiating a vague stab at retaliation against a scheme that Tyrone has hatched against him. But when the drunken lessor shows up for the assignation, what unfolds is a series of jolting revelations that leaves all of the characters - and the audience - emotionally spent, with only a lingering sense of compassion haunting their well-traveled spirits.

This DVD is the ABC television production of this landmark theatrical event, and admirers of great acting can only be thankful that the production was preserved on video. The performances of Jason Robards, repeating the role he created in the original Broadway production and film of "Long Day's Journey"; Ed Flanders, who received both the Tony Award for the Broadway production and the Emmy for the television presentation; and most especially Colleen Dewhurst, who is magnificent in her Tony Award-winning role as Josie, all offer such brilliantly moving performances that the memory of them will linger long after the final credits unspool.

This is as delicate and affectionate a play as 'Ah, Wilderness', the 'comic valentine' O'Neill wrote to the year 1906. This is above all a heart-breaking farewell, to O'Neill's older brother who died an alcoholic.

If you know Long Day's Journey Into Night, this play takes place some years later for the Tyrone/ O'Neil family. The mother two years after the events in Long Day's Journey went into a convent in New York and kicked her drug addiction for good and recovered her lost faith 'she had in her convent days'. Then she and. Jamie were together and he stopped drinking. Jamie began drinking again and died soon after.

Jason Robards is blessed/cursed with the highly developed character of Jamie here too but in this production he shades and softens the self hate and despair with a subtle, wistful longing for forgiveness and for faith. He brilliantly makes us see the Broadway drunken cynicism beginning to crumble and a wounded, child-like self glimpsed underneath.

NO ONE ever did what Colleen Dewhurst does in this production. She is a FORCE OF NATURE. Cherry Jones a great actress did an elegantly nuanced Josie but it just didn't match Colleen.

Josie is one of the most audacious creations in modern theater: mythological almost, The Virgin Mother, the rough and bawdy virgin and her whole role in the play comes down to her being able to embody 'the breast on which the wounded son can find forgiveness and peace'. Dewhurst moves so instinctively and with an animal grace - all the contrived method actors and carefully thought out bits of business look silly as I watched her in this.

I can't help thinking that Jason Robards really did find peace for the character of Jamie he had lived with so many hundreds of soul-scorching performances and for the misery of his own drinking in real life. It almost seems that Robards is giving Jaimie peace on her breast.

This film version of the O'Neill play really is just a film of the play. Unlike most of these that do not work, this is a wonderful way to watch two of Americas greatest performers work. The performances by Dewhurst and Robards are sad, funny and very moving. If you know anything about acting you can see how hard it is to have this kind of relationship to both the material, and the other actor is. Robards and Dewhurst are able at time to seem as if the are just speaking the lines of O'Neill, while just allowing the life to happen, not an easy feat.I feel all young actors and directors should see this film to understand what acting is.