Hoo boy, this hit a nerve. Just being in that infuriating position of theoretically sharing the sentiment of an antisocial drunk a-hole who you also abhor for being an antisocial drunk a-hole. (But S/O to fussy little man, who had the best line of the evening, which I for some reason hear as William Powell: "I had a feeling you'd say something like that.") I haven't seen or read Moon o/t Misbegotten, but I was similarly bummed out by a production of Long Day's Journey I saw on Bway, also with G Byrne, plus Jessica Lange, and the mighty Michael Shannon and the charming John Gallagher Jr., who were all somehow less than the sum of their parts. At the time I blamed the direction, which seemed to stage Actors Studio monologues instead of human confrontations, but maybe it was the text itself. That crash-landing final act of Moon's sounds like an indirect casualty of this weird RC hang-up that's been bugging me in recent years. A fixation on just the virgin birth but the virgin death—meaning that for many of the faithful it's really important that Mary *died* a virgin too. If I remember hearing readings and homilies to this effect, I can't even imagine how deeply engrained that kind of thing must've been for EO, who, though he stopped drinking before writing all his significant plays, still had a lot of bad internal wiring sobriety can't fix by itself. I'm glad you shared this. Just don't tell me Iceman sucketh too—I need Lee Marvin's Hickey in my life.
My mother, Irish-American but unmongrelized Irish back to the Ark, sent us to Catholic school as some mothers send kids to measles-parties. Only in my early adolescence did I realize she spat the mention of the Church. By that time I knew there were many good reasons.
I remember asking at a tender age what the "virgin" part of Saint Mary was, so Sister had the Jesuitical task of explaining virginity, without however conjuring or in any way coming close to the reality of non-virginity, so she straight-up lied: 'That's a woman who's never been married,' she averred in a tone that foreclosed further dialectic. Maybe that's why O'Neill has never provoked a flicker of interest in me, on the page or on the stage. But Dubliners and Portrait struck deep sparks of recognition, the very lingo my innumerable uncles and aunts spoke at Christmas dinner....
Nov 2, 2022·edited Nov 2, 2022Liked by Cintra Wilson
Now tell us how you really feel.
I need to keep this one locked and loaded for reuse somewhere... "stupidly self-indulgent, whiny and gratuitously overwrought". So many uses these days.
Damn, but it’s true. This is a correct critical assessment, Wilson, in my opinion. And it cuts like a knife, for me, in some ways, because I always felt O’Neill was stretching things at the end (with this play, in particular) but I was also grateful for the vehicle because it was the only true Broadway “hit” that the late, great, under-appreciated Colleen Dewhurst ever really had, after years in the trenches, before and after, and she deserved her Tony. But she won it for performance, not material. I’ve seen it three times (not on Broadway) and sensed the glorious O’Neill straining. As for the anecdotal part of your account … well, “salvation” can come from the most unexpected quadrants, but Fat Kinkos Drunk Untucked Guy may have fixed the evening more vividly in observers’ memories than the production itself. Dewhurst’s very, very reluctant (but enigmatic) autobiography reveals her own doubts about the play itself.
Hoo boy, this hit a nerve. Just being in that infuriating position of theoretically sharing the sentiment of an antisocial drunk a-hole who you also abhor for being an antisocial drunk a-hole. (But S/O to fussy little man, who had the best line of the evening, which I for some reason hear as William Powell: "I had a feeling you'd say something like that.") I haven't seen or read Moon o/t Misbegotten, but I was similarly bummed out by a production of Long Day's Journey I saw on Bway, also with G Byrne, plus Jessica Lange, and the mighty Michael Shannon and the charming John Gallagher Jr., who were all somehow less than the sum of their parts. At the time I blamed the direction, which seemed to stage Actors Studio monologues instead of human confrontations, but maybe it was the text itself. That crash-landing final act of Moon's sounds like an indirect casualty of this weird RC hang-up that's been bugging me in recent years. A fixation on just the virgin birth but the virgin death—meaning that for many of the faithful it's really important that Mary *died* a virgin too. If I remember hearing readings and homilies to this effect, I can't even imagine how deeply engrained that kind of thing must've been for EO, who, though he stopped drinking before writing all his significant plays, still had a lot of bad internal wiring sobriety can't fix by itself. I'm glad you shared this. Just don't tell me Iceman sucketh too—I need Lee Marvin's Hickey in my life.
My mother, Irish-American but unmongrelized Irish back to the Ark, sent us to Catholic school as some mothers send kids to measles-parties. Only in my early adolescence did I realize she spat the mention of the Church. By that time I knew there were many good reasons.
I remember asking at a tender age what the "virgin" part of Saint Mary was, so Sister had the Jesuitical task of explaining virginity, without however conjuring or in any way coming close to the reality of non-virginity, so she straight-up lied: 'That's a woman who's never been married,' she averred in a tone that foreclosed further dialectic. Maybe that's why O'Neill has never provoked a flicker of interest in me, on the page or on the stage. But Dubliners and Portrait struck deep sparks of recognition, the very lingo my innumerable uncles and aunts spoke at Christmas dinner....
Now tell us how you really feel.
I need to keep this one locked and loaded for reuse somewhere... "stupidly self-indulgent, whiny and gratuitously overwrought". So many uses these days.
Damn, but it’s true. This is a correct critical assessment, Wilson, in my opinion. And it cuts like a knife, for me, in some ways, because I always felt O’Neill was stretching things at the end (with this play, in particular) but I was also grateful for the vehicle because it was the only true Broadway “hit” that the late, great, under-appreciated Colleen Dewhurst ever really had, after years in the trenches, before and after, and she deserved her Tony. But she won it for performance, not material. I’ve seen it three times (not on Broadway) and sensed the glorious O’Neill straining. As for the anecdotal part of your account … well, “salvation” can come from the most unexpected quadrants, but Fat Kinkos Drunk Untucked Guy may have fixed the evening more vividly in observers’ memories than the production itself. Dewhurst’s very, very reluctant (but enigmatic) autobiography reveals her own doubts about the play itself.