O’Neill’s Diamonds
Uptown theatre critics find the gems at O’NeillFest
Janice Sawka and Barb Stewart

B+
Ah, Wilderness!
The Black Hole Theatre Company
Until Jan. 28, Gas Station Theatre

Appealing more to an older audience, Ah, Wilderness!, presented by The Black Hole Theatre Company, is clearly a product of its time. It was written in 1933, when popular entertainment was having a love affair with nostalgia and the good old days of the turn of the 20th century. O’Neill’s only comedy was created to be a little silly and deliberately old-fashioned by 1933 standards, and today it’s a relic that would never be presented on a mainstage.
This is the story of the Miller family in the summer of 1906, back when the worst thing a teenager could do was read scandalous love poetry. It’s very cute. Like all large-cast student productions, everyone tries his or her darnedest, and performances are variable. Standout bouquets are definitely in order for John Landreville, as patriarch Mr. Miller, and Jim Hanwell, as Sid, the carefree bachelor uncle. Landreville and Hanwell had some nice chemistry going and were enjoyable for their entire time onstage. Jolene Shepherd was the quintessential sympathetic mother hen as Mrs. Miller, and Orlando Carreira, as Richard, the young central character on the brink of manhood, seemed a little too overdone at times, hysterically channelling Jimmy Stewart. However, Carreira redeemed himself in the excellent dialogue of young love when he and long-suffering girlfriend Muriel (Alexis Martin) finally screwed up the courage for their first lovesick kiss.
Some sequences lose their momentum and go on long after they’ve made the point (mostly the fault of the archaic script), but others are charmers. The old-fashioned-looking program is also a nice touch.
Ah, Wilderness! is a little uneven but it’s still fun, in a corny kind of way. Recommend this to your grandparents or anyone else who says they just don’t make ’em like they used to. — JS

B-
Here Before You — Eugene O’Neill
The Hen Coöp/Seeking Productions
Until Feb. 5, The Ellice Café and Theatre

Darcy Fehr gives an inspired turn to the life of Eugene O’Neill in the one O’NeillFest play not penned by the man himself. David Wheeler’s Here Before You — Eugene O’Neill makes a valiant attempt to characterize the life of the famous playwright up to 1916, when the Provincetown Players first read his plays. Here Before You rarely becomes very engaging, but one would be hard-pressed to blame the talented Fehr for that shortcoming.
Wheeler’s stab at mirroring the poetry of O’Neill’s words on the stage is not always a success. He seems a bit too enamoured of his own attempts at the metaphorical, and when he offers the straight ‘facts’ of O’Neill’s life it sometimes sounds like he’s writing for an encyclopedia.
The play is not without its redeeming qualities, however. Wheeler does capture some of the humour and humanity of O’Neill, but the production pales when compared to the works of the master himself.
That said, Fehr brings O’Neill to life flawlessly. He’s a dervish of pain, conflict and hope on a fateful night, awaiting word on the possibility of the first production of his work. He elevates Wheeler’s words beyond their own limitations, and watching him perform is a pleasure.
With a carefully crafted set by Michael Meadows, sharp-eyed direction by Muriel Hogue and a great performance by Fehr, this production, despite the delicate limitations imposed upon it, is well worth a visit. — BS

A
Hughie
Lyndesfarne Productions
Until Feb.5, The Ellice Café and Theatre

This one-act O’Neill play is a delightful gem that showcases the talents of Ric Reid and Jeff Meadows. Hughie is a tale of a lonely man and his need for love. In this case, it’s simply the love of a friend. Someone to listen and accept, no questions asked.
Erie Smith is a down-on-his-luck gambler who has just lost his only friend in the world, Hughie, the night clerk at the hotel in which Smith lives. Hughie was the one thing Erie could depend on. When dice, horses and women had let him down, the clerk was there for him at the end of the night, ready to be wowed by his tall tales of gambling and girls.
When Hughie dies, Erie goes on a bender and returns to the hotel, out of luck, to find a new night clerk who, he hopes, may replace more than just Hughie’s empty place behind the counter.
Ric Reid succinctly captures the spirit and loss of Erie, a wash-up who still yearns for an audience to beguile with his yarns but also just needs a friend now that Hughie has passed on. For all of his boasts, Erie is a lonely soul, and Reid easily takes him from braggart to broken man in a matter of moments.
As Charles Hughes, Hughie’s aptly named replacement, Jeff Meadows has few lines and until the end of the piece most of those are prerecorded internal observations played over the sound system.
While that may sound as if Meadows has little to do, nothing could be further from the case. The actor gives an eloquently poised and timed physical performance as a man just as trapped by life as Erie, drifting from complete boredom to the eager dawning of a new friendship.
A sweet and poignant tale skilfully brought to life. — BS

B-
A Moon for the Misbegotten
Bonded Bourbon Productions
Until Feb. 5, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers’ Studio

In many ways a companion piece to Long Day’s Journey Into Night and an elegy for Eugene O’Neill’s older brother, Jamie, A Moon for the Misbegotten picks up after the death of both Tyrone parents. It’s set at the desolate farm of the Hogans, the tenants the Tyrones referred to in Long Day’s Journey.
Known by the Hogans as Jim, the eldest Tyrone son is the drunken yet benevolent landlord of the farm, and his relationship with the Hogans or, more specifically, Phil Hogan’s daughter Josie, offers a last hope of redemption before an alcohol-related death.
Both Jim and Josie are souls hiding from themselves, Jim with whiskey, Josie with tough talk and the illusion of being the town slut. The two, portrayed by Stefanie Wiens and Kevin Klassen, manage to come together for one moonlit-filled night to share their tattered, tragic love. Both Klassen and Wiens are thoroughly engaging, transforming themselves from fast-talking braggarts in their own regard to sad-eyed lovers who know their time together will be very brief. While there were a few slight opening-night stumbles, ultimately the two have a sweet chemistry that allows the play, especially the last two acts (most of which focus on the two), to live up to their potential.
As Josie’s father, Harry Nelken holds the play back to an extent with a few too many haltingly delivered lines. He has the brogue and moxie of the Irish tenement farmer down, but his projection, at least an opening night, is not as convincing.
But with Wiens and Klassen bringing Jim and Josie’s tale into the light, A Moon for the Misbegotten is a worthy inclusion in O'NeillFest. — BS

A
The Rope
Tara Players
Until Jan. 29, Irish Cultural Centre

Poised to become one of the best of the fest, The Rope is a little gem with enough talent and production values for three plays.
For a small-stage, one-set, one-act piece with a 50-minute running time, the play would earn an A for effort alone. Director Paul Gray has gone to extraordinary lengths to transport the audience back in time. That seascape backdrop? Hand painted by a nationally exhibited local artist. Those bales of hay on the set? The real deal, hauled in personally by Mr. Gray and company. And all those farm implements? Every single one of them a genuine antique, around 80 years old, courtesy of an elderly farming couple in St. Adophe, Man.
Gray has even taken the trouble to logically ‘layer’ the characters’ dialects, so the oldest have the strongest Irish brogues while members of the younger generations have varying degrees. All the accents were well done and largely credible, except for that of Omar Khan as black-sheep son Luke, but his character might have lost his native lilt while travelling the world.
The acting is among the strongest you’ll see from a semi-professional troupe, with Sidney Gray (father of the director and a Tara Players member since 1983) a particular standout as the elderly father, who is by turns sympathetic, difficult, demented and even frightening.
The story unfolds in a lonely farmhouse in 1918 (also the year the play was written), and even if the climactic revelation of the whereabouts of the father’s hidden savings isn’t much of a surprise for contemporary audiences, some of the exchanges and the ironic twist ending still pack a surprising punch. This would’ve been daringly cynical and un-nerving in its day.
If you’d like to sample some genuine O’Neill but don’t think you could sit through three hours of the man’s trademark alcoholism, despair and dysfunctional families, The Rope ties up all these themes in an entertaining and accessible package. — BS

C+
Welded
Theatre Anywhere
Until Feb. 4, Ragpickers Antifashion Emporium

O’Neill’s Welded, written in 1922, is hardly an easy play to bring to the stage. It’s difficult to know quite what O’Neill was attempting to communicate with this short four-act tale of a playwright, his actress wife and the couple’s unsuccessful attempt to destroy their marriage. They fight, separate and come back together all in one night, resigning themselves to the fate of a life together in what they see as love but which may be no more than sacrifice.
There are, of course, autobiographical elements to this, as there are to much of O’Neill’s work. The playwright did marry actress Carlotta Monterey in 1929 after sending her flowers while still married to his second wife, writer Agnes Boulton. So perhaps there are elements of foreshadowing in the work. Whatever the case may be, Welded is much more of a precursor to O’Neill’s greater works than one of them.
Similarly, the cast of Theatre Anywhere’s production doesn’t quite have the experience to give a masterful reading to the piece. While no one is particularly poor, neither does anyone really have the skill to clarify the muddiness of the script.
U of W theatre student Jacquie Guertin makes a valiant attempt as Nelly, the actress wife of playwright Michael Cape, who is played with varying degrees of comfort by Andrew Cecon. For her first stage appearance, Andrea Houssin, as a woman with whom Cape tries to take revenge on his wife, has a sweet comic edge. Glen Krushel as John, a friend who holds an unrequited torch for Nelly and whom she tries to use for her own means of revenge, is adequate but, like his castmates, seems unsure quite where to take the proceedings.
While this production can be applauded for its efforts, perhaps a different play would have better served all involved. — BS

For more O’Neill Fest reviews, see next week’s Uptown; for ticket and schedule info visit www.oneillfest.com.