If you want to see some light Broadway show then "A Moon for the Misbegotten" is not for you. It a serious, difficult drama based on the play by Eugene O'Neill which shows life of three people from Connecticut in September 1923. Even though the span of action lasts only 2 days, you get familiar with characters like you knew then from their birth, so intense and emotional presence they have on stage and so full of information their monologues and dialogues are.

The play revival is coming from London with the cast of Old Vic Theatre including it's artistic director Kevin Spacey, Eve Best and Colm Meaney.  Most people come to see Spacey, but from my point of view the major figure in  the play is sharp-tongued Josie played by Eve Best. She carries out the spirit of the play on her "tough" shoulders without letting audience to be distracted by anything from it. Her character is thirty something woman who tries to hold together her father's farm after her three brothers, one by one, leave the rural Connecticut in pursuit of better life. She stays behind to help her father, secretly wishing for more and knowing that she can't have more. Behind the tough facade that she puts before everybody else, there is a tender human being longing for love and understanding. Her object of affection is James Tyrone, the land owner of the her father's farm and her only home, played by Kevin Spacey. Spacey plays extremely unhappy landlord who is haunted by memories of his dead mother and suffers from alcoholism. The character is loosely based on O'Neill's brother James. We see Spacey playing not very typical for him role. Instead of usual dramatic roles this one is partially comical. You can't help but laugh at Tyrone's schtick. Nevertheless, at the same time you feel sorry for this man who can't buy happiness with his money. Spacey, as usual, delivers interesting and complicated character. He is not afraid to seem pitiful, though he adds a little bit of charm to his rather unattractive "landlord".

The plot of the play is based on drunken Tyrone's joke. He threatens to sell the land which hosts Josie and her father Phil Hogan's farm. This gloomy piece of land suddenly becomes "valuable real estate" because a rich neighbor wants to buy it to get rid of "unpleasant" Hogan's family. In order to save the land Phil asks Josie to pseudo seduce drunk Tyrone. However, Josie's hopeless love and pity for Tyrone changes the course of action. Don't expect a happy ending, this "poem" of longing and loneliness is not "Mamma Mia".

As I already said, the play is not entertaining, it is also not very easy to fully comprehend like such famous dramas as "Streetcar named Desire" or more recent "Proof". However, the act  is impeccable and you just can't help but feel that you are watching high quality intelligent craft; that you are in a presence of masters of the "classical" theatre. You can see the play at Brooks Atkinson Theatre at 256 W. 47th Street.