Banyan Theater Company proves a small company can do great things with one of the great Eugene O'Neill's greatest plays, given three fine lead actors and outstanding tech support.
A constant moon hangs over the wooden bag-supported fence squeezing in the worn New England farm-shack that crusty old Phil Hogan rents from James Tyrone, Jr. Symbolically opposite the weathered porch, a tree spreads little-used shade over a well pump. But liquor primes the pump of the main players in a long night's journey into dawn.
Phil's youngest son, "priest pet" Mike (Steve McAllister, irreverent yet overtly pious) wastes no time being the last of three brothers to leave behind father Phil (red-faced Steven Clark Pachosa, big in body and brogue, as quick to laugh as fight). Booze is all he has left except for his ample, "strong as a bull" daughter Josie, mainstay of the place, though reputedly the area's choosy slut. (Barefoot Jessica K. Peterson shows she's more of an earth mother with strong tongue belying her soft heart.)
On this night, her father plans to use Josie to get their landlord, James Tyrone Jr., to keep his promise to sell them the farm at an affordable price when it's released from his mother's estate. They're frightened he'll sell it to T. Stedman Harder (David Abolafia, playing stiff for indignant), the rich neighbor blustery Phil's been harassing. Just as importantly, Josie is fiercely in love with Tyrone. Tyrone is a would-be Broadway actor but really dissipated second-rate talent who's spent life and money on drink and "tarts." (Robert Hefley sounds like Jason Robards, Jr., the definitive Jim, but with straw hat and natty suit has an obviously put-on air of his -- and Tyrone's -- own.) Since he's long been attracted to Josie, he just might be lured to her bed this night and then have to "pay" for despoiling her. (During the tryst-that-isn't, there's much suspense regarding the question of her virginity, and Helfley and Peterson make it artfully excruciating.)
Tyrone and Josie share, rather than a bed, a series of revelations. Their true love for each other isn't strong enough, unfortunately, to match his dedication to drink with its consequent fatal illusions and delusions. At one point, he frightens her as he fancies he's with a memorably disgusting blond prostitute. (Hefley amazes with his ability to convey, sans cliches, various stages of drunkenness.)
Does Tyrone, while seeming positive an alcoholic death will be his, want to protect Josie from himself or does he still entertain thoughts of a positive return to New York? Jessica Petersen's stunning lost soul, Josie, is unable to get past her negative self-images, to insist she can save him, to believe he wants her to. Their apartness while together on her porch, with him sleeping as if dead in her lap and in her arms' embrace, sculpts a heart-wrenching pieta. (No wonder I could hear more than one seated near me in tears. O'Neill had a way with handling catharsis, and so does actress Petersen.) Needed relief enters with the return of Phil, leading to a resolution of compromise.
Gil Lazier (for family reasons) leaves Banyan, of which he has been Artistic Director the last three years, in glory for his direction of this production. He follows in the footsteps of Jose Quintero, who validated the greatness of O'Neill and this play, and later taught in the College of Theater of Florida State University and at the Asolo Conservatory in Sarasota, both of which Lazier has headed. Banyan Theater Company much deserves its share in all their spotlights.
