Iron Age Theatre&
The Montgomery County Cultural Center
Present
The Centre Theatre presents Irish-American love story "A Moon for the Misbegotten" March 26-April 25
Iron Age Theatre
&
The Montgomery County Cultural Center
Present
The Centre Theatre presents Irish-American love story "A Moon for the Misbegotten" March 26-April 25
Under a full moon on a New England farm, two lost souls whose only chance at love and forgiveness lies in the other, spend the night in a comic struggle to find hope, happiness and ultimately the redemption of love. The Centre Theatre in Norristown presents Eugene O'Neill's classic play "A Moon for the Misbegotten," opening March 26.
The play opens March 26 and runs through April 25 at the Centre Theatre in the Montgomery County Cultural Center, 208 DeKalb Street Norristown. Showtimes are at 8 p.m. with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are $16 and $12. Call 610-279-1013 for information.
The story revolves around Irish tenant farmer Phil Hogan and his daughter Josie, who scratch out a living on a barren, rocky farm in Connecticut. Life is hard, but they find joy in each other's company, the land, and in conning their gullible neighbors out of livestock and cash.
Josie, a tall, heavyset but vibrant, healthy and attractive woman has never married, staying instead on the farm with her irascible father. She believes no man could find someone of her size attractive.
Into the picture comes their neighbor, actor Jim Tyrone, who happens to be their landlord as well. In between Broadway acting jobs, he spends his time drinking with Phil to forget his dissolute past, and scheming how to get back to New York.
An attractive, charming, silver tongued rogue, Jim drinks escape the pain of reality and his desperate loneliness beneath his Irish charm. When the Hogans hear that Jim is considering selling the farm to the millionaire next door, a situation that would leave them without a home, father and daughter embark on an often comic scheme to blackmail Jim into marrying Josie. The most Irish of O'Neill's plays, it is a mixture of lusty humor and bone deep sadness. It is among his most universal works in its dramatization of man's isolation. As the two unhappy souls, Tyrone and Josie, each desperately lonely, struggle to make contact in the moonlight, the play builds to an emotional power, a feeling of naked reality, that O'Neill alone in American theater could attain.
The play is based on O'Neill's real brother Jamie, an actor who died in a sanitarium after literally drinking himself to death after his mother died. Written in 1943 "A Moon for the Misbegotten" is a continuation of O'Neill's previous memory play "Long Day's Journey Into Night," where O'Neill laid bare the tale of his tragic family. "Long Days Journey" was revived last year on Broadway to wide critical acclaim.
Where "Long Days Journey" focused on O'Neill's parents, especially his morphine addicted mother, "Moon" tells what happened to Jamie after the final heart-rending view of him at the end of "Long Days Journey Into Night." While it is often sorrowful, the play ultimately is a joyous tribute to the redemptive power of love and a drama created with deep affection. Winner of 4 Pulitzer Prizes, O'Neill is considered the greatest American playwright.
Steve Hatzai plays the cantankerous Phil Hogan. Hatzai has worked in the theatre for forty years appearing in New York, the Folger Theatre in Washington and in Philadelphia at Interact, Hedgerow, and the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and People's Light and Theatre Company.
Playing Josie is Suzanne H. Smart. She was last seen onstage at the Arden in the Barrymore award winning production of Baby Case. She has done extensive television, film and voice-over work in New York and Philadelphia. Veteran Iron Age performer Ray Saraceni plays the Jim Tyrone. Saraceni has acted at Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, Arcadia Shakespeare, Villanova University and with Iron Age Theatre.
Jered McLenigan plays. Jered McLenigan plays the younger son Mike. McLenigan played Buddy the emotionally disturbed water with in last year's "The Diviners" and was Evans in the critically acclaimed "Terra Nova." The play also stars Steve Mclean.
Working together, the Centre Theatre and Iron Age Theatre have been one of the most critically acclaimed companies working in the Philadelphia Area. Their spring 2003 show "Terra Nova" was nominated for a Barrymore Award for outstanding ensemble. The company also produced the critically acclaimed revival of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."
The Centre Theater is in the Montgomery County Cultural Center at 208 DeKalb Street in Norristown. It is easily reached from Routes 202, I-76, I-476 and Ridge Pike. There is plenty of free parking and the theatre is one block from Septa's Norristown Transit Center, R6 line. Call 610-279-1013 for tickets and information or visit us on the web at www.artscc.org.