Director Howard Davies is reunited with Eve Best and Kevin Spacey for Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, having separately worked with both actors on two other award-winning productions of O'Neill classics, Mourning Becomes Electra at the National Theatre with Best, and The Iceman Cometh at the Almeida, The Old Vic and on Broadway with Spacey.
Josie (Eve Best), a towering woman with a quick tongue and a ruined reputation lives in a dilapidated Connecticut farmhouse with her conniving father, Phil Hogan. Together they're a formidable force as they scrape together a livelihood. But Josie's softer side is exposed through her love of Jim Tyrone (Kevin ...
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Director Howard Davies is reunited with Eve Best and Kevin Spacey for Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, having separately worked with both actors on two other award-winning productions of O'Neill classics, Mourning Becomes Electra at the National Theatre with Best, and The Iceman Cometh at the Almeida, The Old Vic and on Broadway with Spacey.
Josie (Eve Best), a towering woman with a quick tongue and a ruined reputation lives in a dilapidated Connecticut farmhouse with her conniving father, Phil Hogan. Together they're a formidable force as they scrape together a livelihood. But Josie's softer side is exposed through her love of Jim Tyrone (Kevin Spacey), Hogan's landlord and drinking buddy - a third-rate actor whose dreams of stardom were washed away by alcohol.
Eve Best was the 2005 Best Actress winner in the Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for her performance in the title role of Hedda Gabler, directed by Richard Eyre. Her credits at the National Theatre include Mourning Becomes Electra (Critics' Circle Award, Best Actress), Three Sisters (directed by Katie Mitchell), The Coast of Utopia and The Cherry Orchard (directed by Trevor Nunn) and The Heiress. Other work includes ‘Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Young Vic, for which she won the Evening Standard Outstanding Newcomer Award and the Most Promising Newcomer London Critics' Circle Award, The Misanthrope at Chichester Festival Theatre and Lady Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe.
Kevin Spacey is Artistic Director of The Old Vic. He has performed in three productions at the Old Vic since the new company was formed, Trevor Nunn's production of Richard II, National Anthems and The Philadelphia Story. He was awarded the Critics Circle Award for Best Shakespearean Actor and Theatregoer Award for Best Actor for Richard II. Other theatre credits include The Iceman Cometh (Evening Standard and Olivier Awards for Best Actor, and Tony Award nomination), Lost in Yonkers (Tony Award, Best Supporting Actor), Long Day's Journey Into Night with Jack Lemmon in the West End and on Broadway, and The Seagull at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC. Extensive film credits include The Usual Suspects (Academy Award, Best Supporting Actor), American Beauty (Academy and BAFTA Awards, Best Actor), Swimming with Sharks, Se7en, LA Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross,and Beyond the Sea, which he also produced and directed.
Howard Davies is Associate Director of the National Theatre and was previously an Associate at the RSC. While at the RSC he established and ran the Warehouse Theatre, where he produced and directed 35 new plays. Recent work at the National includes Paul, The President of an Empty Room, The House of Bernarda Alba, Flight (Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Director), All My Sons (Olivier Award for Best Director), Mourning Becomes Electra (Critics' Circle Award, Best Director; Olivier Award, Best Revival). Productions at the Almeida include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Iceman Cometh (also Old Vic and Broadway; Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for best director), Period of Adjustment; and in the West End - Private Lives and The Breath of Life. He has also directed Tales from Hollywood, Armadillo, Copenhagen and Blue/Orange for television, and the film of David Hare's The Secret Rapture.
Eugene O'Neill was born in a Broadway hotel room in October 1888. He is credited with raising American dramatic theatre from its narrow origins to an art form respected around the world. His father, James, was one of 19th century America's most popular actors. Eugene worked as a gold prospector and a seaman before falling ill with tuberculosis, and was inspired to become a playwright while reading during his recovery.
A drama in four acts, A Moon for the Misbegotten was written in 1943 and first performed in New York City in 1957. Until Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards' celebrated performances in the 1973 production, it was a neglected piece viewed largely as a postscript to his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night. It was in fact forged from an episode in the first act of that play, focusing on the oldest Tyrone son, an alcoholic actor.
The production is designed by Bob Crowley, with lighting by Paule Constable, music by Dominic Muldowney and sound by Christopher Shutt.null
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