Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten (Broadway Theatre Archive)
starring: Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, Ed Flanders, Edwin McDonough, John O'Leary
directed by: Gordon Rigsby, José Quintero
directed by: Gordon Rigsby, José Quintero
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0014381147629
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: April 23, 2002
Running Time: 134 minutes
Sales Rank: 43128
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: May 27, 1975
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- see more
Editorial Review:
Description:
Theatrical sparks flew when veteran Eugene O'Neill interpreters Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst joined forces in the celebrated 1973 revival of O'Neill's tender semi-autobiographical drama. In a towering performance, the great Robards portrays a cynical, self-hating alcoholic actor based on O'Neill's elder brother, Jamie. The majestic Colleen Dewhurst plays the earthy, gruff daughter of his scheming Irish tenant farmer (Ed Flanders), with whom the failed actor spends a soul-baring night of guilt-ridden confessions, tenderness, and absolution. Both Dewhurst and Flanders won Tony Awards for their performances.
Amazon.com:
Eugene O'Neill's final completed play stands among his most compelling achievements. But its reception was tardy in grasping the true quality of this swan song. Written in the early 1940s, A Moon for the Misbegotten was first produced by the Theatre Guild in 1947 and was a flop; O'Neill himself voiced insecurity about the play before his death in 1953. If only he had experienced Jose Quintero's production in 1973, he would have seen his work vindicated. From the start, Moon is an immense challenge to cast properly and to pace effectively. The smallest miscalculation can shift what should be emotionally wrenching into insufferable sentimentality. This long, lyrical drama offers no place to hide from the searingly intense light it casts on its two central characters. Yet the match here between Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards is so ideal that they set the gold standard for the play, which has since become much better known in an increasing number of subsequent revivals.
On one level a sequel to Long Day's Journey into Night, Moon continues the former's process of exorcism, but without its turmoil and rage. Instead, the tone--so beautifully calibrated in Quintero's sense of rhythm and musical shaping--is one of elegy, resignation, and compassion. Robards built a career on his uncanny ability to project himself as a soulmate of O'Neill's down-and-out, disillusioned breed of 'misbegotten' mortals. He plays alcoholically self-destructive, poetry-quoting older brother Jamie Tyrone (from Journey) with hard-edged honesty. The 'giantess' earth-mother Josie is eloquently realized by Colleen Dewhurst in a sturdy and stoical but nuanced portrayal that makes Jamie's confession at the heart of Moon just as much her story and need to experience a 'night different from all the rest.' Somehow, in the unexpected grace they share, both manage to break free, just for one night, from the patterns they've allowed to predict their behavior. Ed Flanders (who won a Tony with Dewhurst for the revival) brings a magnificent deadpan humor to the Irish tenant farmer father Hogan, concealing his love behind a shared ritual of play-acting with Josie.
The DVD is from a made-for-TV production, with the obvious limitations of camera angles and close-ups; it contains no frills (discounting nearly an hour of excerpts from other Broadway Theatre Archive titles), just the pared-down authenticity of O'Neill's characters brought to life with truth-seeking power. --Thomas May
Average Rating: 
Rating:
- what you see is what you getThis is an example of a product simply being what it is; that is: this is a transcription of the television ... Read More
Rating:
- It makes me wish I'd seen the stage production.I was completely mesmorized by this production. It had my undivided attention from start to finish. My first ... Read More
Rating:
- a masterpiecethis production has some of the greats in it and directing it. jason robards and colleen dewhurst really make the ... Read More
Rating:
- totally satisfiedDelivery was prompt in a well conditioned packaging.
Good quality recording of a known play by Nobel Prize winner ... Read More
Rating:
- Theatrical Experience of the Decade?This play revival marks the pinnacle of several noteworthy careers. Jose Quintero has made a reputation, in part, as his ... Read More
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