Photo courtesy Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’
James Pickering and Kelly Doherty in Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’
Ranked with the greatest 20th century American playwrights, Eugene O’Neill pushed aside showbiz assumptions and found an audience for challenging ideas. O’Neill dared to depict lower-class lives and place Black characters of complexity on stage; he adapted the innovations of European drama, and he challenged the soulless materialism that was the underside of the American Dream. The Iceman Cometh, The Emperor Jones and Long Day’s Journey into Night are unimpeachable masterpieces. A Moon for the Misbegotten, his final play, was sometimes considered among his lesser accomplishments.
“I’m going to push back a bit” against that assumption, says Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s Artistic Director Brent Hazelton. “When Moon was first produced in the late 1940s it was resoundingly panned—ditto its first New York production in the 1950s. But since its 1973 revival with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, it’s been—at least as far as I know—almost universally considered to be one of O’Neill’s masterpieces alongside Long Day’s Journey into Night, to which Moon serves as something of a sequel.”
MCT will roll out its production of A Moon for the Misbegotten this weekend. The play was originally scheduled for spring of 2020, during Hazelton’s first season as artistic director, but Covid stood in the way.
“I’m thrilled to finally be able to share this rarely produced masterpiece with our community,” Hazelton continues. “At MCT, one of our mission imperatives is strengthening our local artist community and an important part of that is challenging artists with titanic roles that are terrific fits for their skills and that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to play.”
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For 2020, Hazelton cast a familiar actor for Milwaukee theatergoers, Kelly Doherty, as Moon’s strong-willed, quick-tongued Josie Hogan. He brought her back for the 2023 production in a cast that includes Jim Pickering, La Shawn Banks, Zach Thomas Woods and A.J. Magoon. MCT veteran Mary MacDonald Kerr will direct.
O’Neill went to places where most of his American contemporaries failed to follow. “I don’t think America was ready to embrace either Moon or a central character like Josie Hogan until the 1970s,” Hazelton says. “Moon feels in its insight into human psychology, in its frank discussion of both Josie and [landlord] James Tyrone’s respective sexuality, and in the ambiguity—in both moral and plot terms—of its conclusion, much like the actor-driven, ensemble cast, gritty, ambiguous and incisive films of the 1970s.”
Hazelton explains that Moon’s story revolves around two people desperate to love but believe themselves to be unlovable. “Like every O’Neill play it focuses heavily on the personal costs of the masks that we wear and the roles that we play for those around us—sometimes, or in some cases because of, those closest to us—and the peace that comes from being honest with ourselves about who we are in the world when we drop those masks,” he says. “It’s deeply compelling in both its hilarity and heartbreak, poetically written, and like every O’Neill play, touches universal truth in which any audience member can find something touching their life.”
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre will present A Moon for the Misbegotten, Jan. 19-Feb. 4, at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre. According to Hazelton, it will be the first professional Milwaukee production of the play in 30 years. “You may not be able to predict your own emotional journey as an audience member through an O’Neill play, but you will have one and it will feel very full,” he concludes.
For more information, visit milwaukeechambertheatre.org.
