A Moon for the Misbegotten

The audience experience of Quantum Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten began the moment I turned my car onto the Longue Vue Club’s property in Verona, Pennsylvania on the picturesque outskirts of Pittsburgh’s city limits. Quantum Theatre has specialized in site-specific productions for more than thirty years, and director J. Cody Spellman’s decision to use the lush and exclusive golf club as the setting for O’Neill’s gripping psychological drama is high atop my list of the company’s most effective site choices.My winding approach to the performance space featured rolling, manicured golf greens hedged by patches of woodland, where a family of deer grazed in the early evening shadows. The stately stone clubhouse towered above as the road dipped under the structure. I was momentarily disoriented by the darkness of a small tunnel and then emerged into the wild greenery of a more densely wooded area. I parked at the “Shooting Club” shack, where a picnic area had been designated for attendees to enjoy a preshow sojourn. I checked in with the makeshift box office and promptly received a complimentary cup of wine. I bought into the urbanity of it all, sipping my wine and traversing a footpath choked with Queen Anne’s lace, foxtail, creeping thistle, and fleabane while taking in the view overlooking the Allegheny River Valley, where recreational boats were moored at their docks for the season. I relished the dramatic irony of this idyllic space hosting the tragic story I was about to witness.The venue’s 150 seats were arranged in a crescent-shaped stadium, which looked down onto Stephanie Mayer-Staley’s skeletal rendition of the Hogans’ farmhouse set into a hillside. The natural foliage from the slope organically crept through spaces in the open frame of the house, foreshadowing a throughline of design choices that brought hard and soft lines into conversation with each other. All spaces of the farmhouse were open to view: the porch with a rocking chair; a kitchen with table, chairs, and a Hoosier cabinet; and Josie Hogan’s bedroom, her bed covered in a pastel quilt with a Lone Star pattern, subliminally conveying her inner solitude. Detritus under the house suggested the Hogans’ long-term tenancy, with overturned jugs half-hidden by weeds and an animal pelt peeking out of a battered basket. The main playing space in front of the house was covered in distressed artificial turf and featured a perfect imitation of the flat-topped boulder that O’Neill calls for in his stage directions.It was an uncharacteristically mild and clear August night, around seventy-three degrees and falling as dusk settled. The sunset was forecast for 8:18 p.m., and the waxing gibbous moon was already in the sky, kissing the tops of the trees on the hill behind the farmhouse. The pervasive song of cicadas was punctuated by the mournful horn of a train in the distance. These were the finishing touches before the show began, though I felt I had been immersed in the world for so much longer. Both the lighting designer, C. Todd Brown, and the composition/sound designer, Ryan McMasters, collaborated skillfully with nature throughout the show.Spellman’s main departure from O’Neill’s intentions was in the portrayal of the Hogan family, whom he cast as Black Americans of unspecified Christian faith instead of white Irish Catholics. The spoken text reflected this change immediately. The actors did not use an Irish dialect, and I immediately noticed the swapping of “pastor” for “priest” and the elimination of a reference to the Pope. The efficacy of this choice is definitely in question, but the chemistry between the actors, especially Melessie Clark as Josie Hogan and Wali Jamal as Phil Hogan, was a highlight of the show. Jamal is a treasured son of Pittsburgh, and his rapport with Clark made their confidence scheme against their arrogant neighbor T. Stedman Harder (played with superior physical comedy by Allen Law) all the more delightful.Damian E. Dominguez’s costume design beautifully supported character relationships throughout the show, recalling the interplay of hard and soft lines first identified in the scenic design. The lower-class Hogans wore muted colors with loose silhouettes, while the upper-class characters wore saturated colors with crisp tailoring. The first scene with Jim Tyrone and Phil showcased this effect. Jim wore a close-fitting, navy-blue, three-piece suit with a bright yellow silk tie and a refined straw hat with a fine weave. Phil wore a faded red button-up with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of overalls with one strap undone. His version of a straw hat was distressed and had a much looser weave. As the play progressed, Josie’s and Jim’s clothing began to pull them toward each other, with Jim becoming more undone, shedding his jacket, loosening (and ultimately losing) his tie and unbuttoning and rolling up his shirtsleeves. Josie, who began the play barefoot and in a light-blue sleeveless dress and apron, transitioned to a bright red dress, stockings, and tightly strapped shoes in the second act.Despite the highly capable actors and beautiful design, Spellman’s conceptual casting and subsequent script cuts muddied the tragic power of the dramatic conflict in O’Neill’s text. In addition to the changes regarding religion mentioned above, more cuts were apparent throughout the performance, which ran at a nearly inconceivable (for an O’Neill production) ninety minutes. Brett Mack, who played the tortured Jim Tyrone to good effect, and Clark were perhaps too bright and beautiful to play the titular “misbegotten” figures. These two characters both have crises of identity deeply rooted in Catholic guilt and gender expectations. To remove the references to Catholicism from the production is to remove the socio-spiritual factors that create the psychological conflict in each character.In patriarchal ideology, women are relegated to three categories—maiden, mother, and whore—and never afforded the opportunity for any identity more complex than those restrictive descriptors. In Catholicism, maiden and mother are bound together in the symbol of the Madonna, Jesus’s mother Mary, the epitome of purity and protection. Jim Tyrone is crippled with guilt and grief over the loss of his mother, whom he feels he has consistently disappointed, both in life and death. For those of us who know the precursor to this play and O’Neill’s penchant for autobiographical content, Jim has himself been traumatized by his mother’s decades-long morphine addiction. Josie has been relegated to the role of mother since the death of her own when she was eight years old, taking care of her three brothers and her father for the past twenty years. She desperately tries to find her own identity, but in a Catholic existence the only other one available to her is that of the whore. Jim discovers partway through the play that she has tried to cover up her virginity with lies of having sexual encounters with men throughout the community, and his realization that she now embodies the qualities of maiden and mother draws him to her as if she is the Madonna, a confessor and intercessor for his sinful past. Josie has no choice but to accept this role. O’Neill solidifies this trope with the iconic image of Jim in the last act, purged of his sin after confessing to Josie, collapsed like a dead man across her lap and breast. It is an unmistakable allusion to the classic Pietà where Mary cradles the lifeless body of Jesus after he is removed from the cross. Spellman chose not to recreate this stage picture, which, admittedly, had no place in a concept that had removed all references to Catholicism.The weight of this tragedy—that these two cannot break free from their own internal turmoil and trauma to be able to love each other—was completely lost in this production. It is a shame that the themes and conflict could not be preserved to combine with the astonishing mise-en-scène for a truly unforgettable production. Let it serve as a reminder that Aristotle pointedly ranked plot and character above spectacle in order to have an effective tragedy.