Actor’s Express is offering a gripping night of theatre with a staging of Eugene O’Neill’s tragic drama “Desire Under the Elms,” now through Aug. 28.
O’Neill is a towering figure in American drama, the only American playwright to have won the Nobel Prize (I think Tennessee Williams ought to have won it also, but that’s another story).
I will mention that O’Neill’s masterpiece, “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” gave me one of the greatest evenings in theatre I’ve ever had; the 2003 Broadway revival with Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Dennehy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Robert Sean Leonard. It was sublime.
“Desire” was written earlier in his career (1924). For this play he was heavily influenced by the Greek tragedian Euripides’ “Hippolytus,” which has a love triangle between a father, son, and stepmother.
O’Neill also admired and was influenced by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, who championed naturalism, which stresses the importance of heredity and environment on human action.
The action of “Desire Under the Elms” takes place in 1850 in and around the rocky Cabot farmhouse in rural New England. The owner of the farm is 75-year-old Ephraim Cabot (Tim McDonough), a tough old codger if there ever was one. He speaks with a rural American English vernacular, as do the other characters; they haven’t had much formal education, but they are powerful, memorable figures capable of great passions and aspirations.
Ephraim has three sons: Simeon and Peter (Jason Kirkpatrick and Brian Ashton Smith) both about 36, “more bovine and homelier in face” than their younger half brother Eben, but also more shrewd and practical.
Eben (Ryan Vo) is about 25; O’Neill says “his face is well-formed, good-looking, but its expression is resentful and defensive.” Eben feels that his mother was practically worked to death by old Cabot; furthermore, her relatives always claimed that the farm was actually hers. Eben remembers this.
Simeon and Peter’s mother is also dead. And now Cabot has gone searching for a third wife, although he said, “I’m ridin’ out t’ learn God’s message t’ me in the spring, like the prophets done.” While he’s away, the two older brothers tell Eben they are heading to California for the gold rush, although they want to own the farm when their father dies.
So does Eben. He offers Simeon and Peter $300 each to sell him their share of the farm, and they agree. What nobody has counted on is Cabot’s sudden return with a 35-year-old new wife, an attractive woman named Abbie (Precious West).
Here is where the fireworks in the play begin. Eben instantly resents Abbie, for he knows that she will now inherit the farm instead of him and by proxy, his late mother, whom he loves and reveres. But Abbie has a mind and passions of her own; and when she meets Eben, she likes what she sees. And that is all the plot you get, except to say that Abbie suggests to Cabot that she could give him a son; Cabot swiftly and fervently agrees.
As the fiery and rock hard old patriarch, Tim McDonough commands the stage. I saw this actor play King Lear once, superbly, and he brings all his skill, talent, and experience in playing Cabot. He’s a marvel.
Ms. West and Mr. Vo bring youthful power and passion to Abbie and Eben. When Eben says of his late mother, “Sometimes she used to sing for me,” and bursts into sobbing, it is very moving indeed.
Brian Ashton Smith and James Kirkpatrick offer excellent support as Peter and Simeon; and James Baskin is a fine Sheriff.
Kat Conley’s scenic design, with the audience seated on both sides of the playing area, works beautifully. So does Joseph P. Monaghan III’s lighting design. And I believe Chris Lane and Kate Hoang, sound designers, wrote the music, which is first rate.
“Desire Under the Elms” is not an easy play to produce or perform, but Artistic Director Freddie Ashley is more than up to the challenge. He knows this is not O’Neill’s greatest work, but any O’Neill play is an event in my book, and Mr. Ashley’s love and knowledge of theatre is on full view here.
For tickets and information, visit actors-express.com.