BRAVO! WINTER/SPRING 2004
Barbara Embree & Elena Stylosin, Lord Leebrick’s Far Away.
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BY ARIA SELIGMANN
he ebbing of winter’s darkest days
becomes apparent as the new the-
ater season lights up playhouses
around town. Like rich, thick stews that
warm to the bone, several companies offer
compelling dramas that audience members
can sink their teeth into.
Only a few are noted here, but please
check EW weekly for updates and reviews.
Eugene is truly blessed to have so many
theater companies, each with its own niche
and offerings. Please support them.
An exciting note sounds as Willamette
Repertory Theatre offers a Eugene O’Neill
work that personifies Artistic Director Kirk
Boyd’s dream of offering high quality
American works.
A Moon for the Misgotten is O’Neill’s
final, comic-tragic play, written in 1943,
not long after Long Day’s Journey Into
Night, as a eulogy to his brother James.
“O’Neill had just finished Long Day’s
Journey into Night and felt he hadn’t given
Jamie just due in how much he loved his
mother,” says Boyd.
O’Neill created a meaty woman’s role in
the character of Josie, and he also called the
work The Moon Bore Twins because of
Josie’s story.
Set in early September 1923, the plot
revolves around Josie Hogan, a big, strong
farm girl — O’Neill called for her to be
about 5’11” and 180 lbs. He created her as
a spitfire Irish woman with an Irish pig-
farmer father who’s a shrewd character. But
T
it’s the relationship between Josie and
James Tyrone, their alcoholic landlord, that
is the center of the story.
In this production, Tony DeBruno (last
seen in WRT’s Art) is James Tyrone Jr.,
Dennis Robertson is the contentious Phil
Hogan, Michelle Morain is Josie, and Jeff
Pierce doubles as Mike Hogan and T.
Stedman Harder.
Although Morain’s Josie is not the over-
powering Earth Goddess O’Neill described,
Boyd interprets O’Neill’s size requirements
to mean Josie should be a woman of char-
acter — not an ingenue.
Boyd calls the lyricism of O’Neill’s
writing “pure American poetry.” But it’s not
all wine and roses. Although the play
begins on a light note and has a healthy
dose of comedy, it still hangs heavy in the
end.
“The agony of this play is in those
moments where Josie and James come so
close to connecting,” he says. “If they could
just talk to each other and just do it, but
they’re both so wounded they can’t.”
In this play where nothing is as it seems,
where the romanticism of a moon hangs
over the action, two souls fail to love.
Therein lies the tragedy.
The lesson is, “Be brave,” says Boyd.
As in the play, there is an element of
pathos within the mounting of this produc-
tion, but a note of magic resides in it as well.
Before he founded WRT, when he was
with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival,
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Call 1-800-482-7128 • www.ashlandinn.com
music, dance
& theatre arts
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Fridays & Saturdays,
February 6-21, 8:00pm
Sunday, February 15, 2:00pm
MUSIC ENSEMBLE CONCERTS
March 4-12
THE WORKS DANCE CONCERT
April 22-24, 7:30pm
FACULTY JAZZ CONCERT
April 29, 7:30pm
VOCAL JAZZ CONCERT
May 11 & 13, 7:00pm
SPRING DANCE CONCERT
May 20-22, 8:00pm
MUSIC ENSEMBLE CONCERTS
May 23-June 4
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463-5202
JANUARY 8, 2004 21