Theatre review: A Moon for the Misbegotten

We're not even into the final year of Rupert Goold's programming yet but the Almeida stage already looks like the movers are in: Tom Scutt's design for A Moon for the Misbegotten piles up planks, pillars, old props and broken doorframes to create the multilevel set for Eugene O'Neill's final play, a spin-off from Long Day's Journey Into Night. The alcoholic older son from that play, James Tyrone Jr (Michael Shannon) left a failing Broadway career for life as a landlord in rural Connecticut, where he rents out a worthless piece of farmland to Phil Hogan (David Threlfall.) The old farmer's manipulative ways and use of them as free labour has seen all his children leave him except for sole daughter Josie (Ruth Wilson,) and he's also made an enemy of his wealthy neighbour (Akie Kotabe.) Now a rumour has reached him that the millionaire has a plan to get rid of him once and for all: Offer James well over the odds to buy the land from him, so he can turf out the tenants.

But Phil thinks he still has a secret weapon: Josie has a reputation for sleeping around, one she actually embraces and admits to. But one man she hasn't slept with is James, who claims her public image is just a front for a virginally innocent young woman - and he might even believe this.

What plot there is sees the Hogans try to use James' obvious infatuation with Josie to get them out of their current risk, and maybe even marry into his inheritance when the lawyers finally release it to him. But this is very much not a play driven by its plot, and while something entirely character-based can be very successful, A Moon for the Misbegotten is so tied up in rambling, indulgent discussions that it’s really no surprise if it’s so much less well-known than its predecessor.

Before the show Ian said he’d heard only two quotes about Rebecca Frecknall’s production: That it had some of the best acting you’re likely to see, and that it’s very boring. I said both things can be true and the show absolutely proves that. There’s no arguing that Wilson is fantastic in the central role, convincing as the jaded, stocky farmgirl even if she looks nothing like the way she’s repeatedly described. Threlfall takes characteristic glee in his villainy as the conniving old drunk, and I… guess there’s something bold in O’Neill writing a theatrical alcoholic as self-pitying and tedious as one in real life, so it’s not necessarily Shannon’s fault if his character is as likely to send you to sleep as the theatre’s underperforming aircon is.

There are moments that sharply bring you back into focus, particularly the way the dialogue’s shot through with moments of cruel, dark humour, and the jolt when an actual bit of plot seems to be happening. These are what brought me back after the interval, along with the fact glances at my watch showed that, surprisingly, the time was actually passing faster than I thought. But in an unusually subdued production for Frecknall I don’t know that the second half actually rewarded sticking with it, the characters spinning every conversation as long as it can conceivably be spun (after his mother’s death James fell off the wagon and slept with a prostitute, information it takes him a good uninterrupted 15 minutes to divulge.) If Long Day’s Journey Into Night is hard work but can, when done right, feel worth it, A Moon for the Misbegotten is just hard work.

A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O’Neill is booking until the 16th of August at the Almeida Theatre.

Running time: 3 hours 5 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.