We round up the reviews for Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s play.
Broadway World: *** “Frecknall’s trademark lucid expressionism heightens their ambient longing, a lone lantern circles the stage, an omnipresent moon showering them in icy light. But it’s not enough to redeem one of O’Neill’s more cumbersome plays, in need of streamlining to match the soul piercing eroticism of her other directorial offerings. A strong production subdued by the limitations of the play.”
The Standard: **** “This is a chance to see a challenging American classic with great clarity.”
The Reviews Hub: *** “This is just one of those times when all the pieces are in place but don’t fit; Tom Scutt’s layered wooden workhouse design is evocative, Jack Knowles’ lighting is gorgeous, rotating on two tracks to create moonlight and sunrise, and the performances individually are extremely good.”
WhatsOnStage: *** “But the way it highlights the pre-crash wealth gap is anything but; the Hogans’ awareness that no amount of good, honest labour will lift them out of poverty is an all-too-familiar plight. It’s also an excellent study of addiction, the sense that the bottle’s ability to erase memory can be its greatest appeal. Although the bagginess of the play remains a sticking point, this is a valuable chance to see it delivered with dynamism and no small amount of humour from an ensemble of the very highest quality.”
The Guardian: ** “Perhaps not, but too much of the play creaks with what feel like anachronisms. Frecknall is sometimes charged with being too overbearing a director but this production might have benefited from bigger, bolder revisionism.”
London Theatre.co.uk: *** “On Tom Scutt’s simply dressed set, where there is not a great deal to engage visually beyond a wall of farm tools, the trio’s self-conscious movements carry all the more weight. But it’s a trick involving Jack Knowles’s spotlight orbiting the stage as a low-hanging moon that has the most optical impact, framing the should-be couple in their tortured embrace and offering a momentary glimmer of what might have been.”
The Telegraph: ***** “Rebecca Frecknall presents an evening of exquisite suffering.”
The Independent: ***** “If the message is dark, this production of Eugene O’Neill’s swansong is nonetheless full of wonder.”
Time Out: **** “Frecknall handles it brilliantly: she knows how to let the humour ebb away, how to let the anguish build. Maybe there’s a bit too much whisky-swilling and moonlight melodrama, but even when O’Neill’s text sags, the production holds it up with fine-wrought acting or slowly circling lights or heartrending stage pictures, like Shannon doubled over in agony while Wilson holds him tightly to her. As she did with Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke, Frecknall turns the tilth on a half-buried play, and digs up something extraordinary.”
The Stage: **** “Ruth Wilson’s central performance crystallises the subtle dynamics in this powerful revival of O’Neill’s melancholy drama.”
The i Paper: **** “Shannon offers a detailed study of a despairing man whose dead eyes occasionally flicker with life and hope, and Threlfall is a delight as a rollicking, roaring old boy who might just have more empathy than we give him credit for.”
British Theatre Guide: “This is a watchable, entertaining performance of one of the plays that helped shape world theatre and will quickly sell out.”
The Spy in the Stalls: ***** “This is a gem of a production, and it has award winning performances from the three main characters. You will want to see it at the Almeida, or hope it transfers.”
To book tickets visit: https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/a-moon-for-the-misbegotten/