Writer: Eugene O’Neill
Director: Garry Hynes
A Moon for the Misbegotten is the lesser-known of Eugene O’Neill’s late-era plays based on his own life and family, with The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey Into Night produced far more regularly. All three excavated elements of the great writer’s life, about which he was not able to write until after his great popular and critical successes of the 1920s. As he retreated into semi-obscurity, depression, and ill health in the 1930s, he turned to face his past, and produced three mesmerising, heartbreaking, and drink-sodden plays, two of which secured his reputation, likely for all time, as America’s greatest playwright. That is why Druid’s choice to perform Moon in both Galway and the Dublin Theatre Festival was so intriguing – what could they do with this relatively unknown masterpiece? As it turns out, a great deal.
Stunning performances from Eileen Walsh and Marty Rea are the heart, soul, and backbone of this work, in which O’Neill imagines his older brother’s dying days, in the early 1920s, on their Connecticut estate, after the recent death of their parents. The play acts as a confession; Jim Tyrone (Rea) pours the poison of his soul onto Josie Hogan (Walsh), the daughter of his tenant farmer and crony, Phil (Lorcan Cranitch). Over the course of a night, Jim and Josie teeter on the edge of confessing their love to one another – in the end, though, Josie understands that Jim cannot feel or show real love. It isn’t even what he needs or wants; he seeks solely the unconditional love of a mother, and with it the peace to allow himself to be at final rest.
The emotional movements of the play are huge, the depth of sorrow almost unimaginable, and Rea and Walsh match the parts with an almost unsettling ease. Walsh in particular, playing one of the greatest and most challenging female roles in American theatre history, hit the required pitch perfectly; she’s a big talker, tender to the touch, and deeply unhappy – she constantly scratches her leg or rubs the hem of her dress, always communicating a barrage of emotions. Rea is a smooth-talking sport (but is that accent meant to be Bawston or Noo Yawkh? It’s often hard to tell.), but grips tightly to his cane, as if it is the only thing holding him up. The moments in which the façade slips, and we get a sense of the real Jim, are brutal.
The first act is broad; there are a lot of laughs, and it’s easy to understand why some in the audience think they’re in an O’Casey play. In a sense they are, but it then turns into Synge, Ibsen, and finally its own uniquely O’Neillian misery. The backdrop is a torched map of Ireland, suitable and inventive for a play deeply impacted by O’Neill’s heritage. The moon, so vital (in both senses) for the third scene, is on the stage in pieces by the fourth, and the suitable lighting changes from hot to cold are understated but deeply effective.
If there is a flaw it is in O’Neill’s writing, which produced an overlong play that is an endurance test (despite the first act being raced through) – though no serious scholar contests this tendency of his; although it produced the desired effect of pounding, repetitive misery, for many there is a limit. As a production, though, this is a welcome production of a truly wonderful American play, and one that nobody could have done better than Hynes with Druid.
Runs Until 4th Oct 2026.
