Moon for The Misbegotten

Genre: Drama
Opened 26 Sep 2006
Written: Eugene O'Neill
Directed: Howard Davies
Cast: Kevin Spacey (James Tyrone), Eve Best (Josie), Billy Carter (T. Stedman Harder), Colm Meaney (Phil Hogan), Eugene O'Hare (Mike Hogan )
Synopsis: Set in 1923 Connecticut, explores the tormented and alcoholic James Tyrone, who finds solace one moonlit night in the healing arms of the shy, virginal Josie Hogan. Possessed by the memory of his dead mother and guilt ridden by his own blasphemous behavior, the doomed Tyrone is the only man Josie will ever really know

What the critics had to say.....
PAUL TAYLOR for THE INDEPENDENT says, "Beautiful, funny, and cathartic...Spacey's superb performance...Eve Best in her heart-stopping performance....I do not see how Best and Spacey could have delineated its human depths and breadths better." NICHOLAS DE JONGH for THE EVENING STANDARD says, "Howard Davies's blunt-edged rather than piercing production reminds me how irritated I am by the artificiality of O'Neill's self-analysing, longwinded characters who take extravagantly to suffering as if it were a pill that made you glad to be low." MICHAEL BILLINGTON for THE GUARDIAN says, "Superbly directed by Howard Davies, proves the highlight of the Spacey regime to date...Watching Best and Spacey together is like seeing two desperate people stripping their souls naked. Bob Crowley's ramshackle rural set and Colm Meaney's self-deceptive Hogan lend weight to a production that offers that rarest of theatrical treats: an evening of raw, powerful emotion." CHARLES SPENCER for THE DAILY TELEGRAPH says, "Tremendous, often shatteringly powerful production...As always in O'Neill, the writing is sometimes both prolix and clumsy, but Howard Davies's production, so rich in both depth and detail, somehow makes it all work." BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE for THE TIMES says, "Howard Davies's revival, with Kevin Spacey and Eve Best ablaze at its epicentre, is both a major triumph and, inevitably, a bit of a failure. It proves impossible to disguise that the play is an awkward mix of rustic laugh-in and searing confessional, but it's equally impossible to miss the force of the long denouement that only O'Neill had the passion and power to create."

External links to full reviews from popular press
The Guardian
The Independent
The Times
Daily Telegraph