It took no small amount of guts for the Pearl Theatre Company to mount “A Moon for the Misbegotten.”
This final masterpiece by Eugene O’Neill hasn’t exactly been underexposed here. Broadway’s had a few starry revivals: Gabriel Byrne and Cherry Jones performed it in 2000, followed seven years later by Kevin Spacey and Eve Best. And the legendary 1973 production with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst is readily available on DVD.
But the gamble’s paid off. Despite its languorous 3 1/2-hour running time and lack of big names, the Pearl’s version is a gem — mining all of the play’s humor and pathos while providing the sort of deeply intimate experience you can’t get in a large theater.
Set in 1923 Connecticut, “Moon,” written two decades later, is a sequel of sorts to “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Here, one of that family’s sons — James Tyrone Jr., a character based on O’Neill’s brother — is an actor and the landlord of tenant farmer Phil Hogan and his daughter Josie. When Hogan gets the idea that Tyrone is about to sell the farm to a neighbor, he persuades his daughter to seduce him and change his mind.
Josie happens to be deeply in love with Tyrone, and can’t believe that a Broadway matinee idol could be interested in “an ugly, overgrown lump of a woman.” But during their late-night, moonlit rendezvous, Tyrone reveals both the depth of his feelings for her and the guilt and self-loathing that has made him an alcoholic.
J.R. Sullivan’s staging expertly realizes the play’s humor, and many of the characters’ exchanges play like the work of seasoned vaudevillians. But the evening is deeply moving nevertheless. When Tyrone rests his head on Josie’s ample chest and sighs deeply, he seems like a weary traveler who’s finally found his way home.
The performances are sublime. Dan Daily’s boisterous Phil is consistently amusing, and Kim Martin-Cotten beautifully conveys Josie’s earth-mother toughness, as well as her sensuality and vulnerability. And Andrew May is haunting in his NYC stage debut as the tortured Tyrone, who walks off to embrace his destiny of self-destruction.