A Moon for the Misbegotten

by Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O’Neill’s last completed play, A Moon for the Misbegotten is a sequel to his autobiographical Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Moon picks up eleven years after the events described in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, as Jim Tyrone (based on O’Neill’s older brother Jamie) grasps at a last chance at love under the full moonlight. This paperback edition features an insightful introduction by Stephen A. Black, helpful to anyone who desires a deeper understanding of O’Neill’s work.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Classics, Fiction, American, Nobel Prize

86 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

American playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill authored Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 among his works; he won the Nobel Prize of 1936 for literature, and people awarded him his fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night , produced in 1956.

He won his Nobel Prize "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism that Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg pioneered to Americans and first used true American vernacular in his speeches.

His plays involve characters, who, engaging in depraved behavior, inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness! , his only comedy: all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

Reviews

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.”
A Moon for the Misbegotten ~~~ Eugene O'Neill



In the cannon of Eugene O'Neill's plays, A Moon for the Misbegotten is uniquely funny and poignant.

In A Moon for the Misbegotten we revisit James Tyrone, Jr., the son from Long Day's Journey Into Night. Tyrone visits the home of his tenant farmer, Phil Hogan. There he encounters Hogan’s magnetic daughter, Josie. It’s been years since the two have seen each other. During one moonlit night, as the love-struck Josie seems to claim him as her own, the drunken Jamie drowns in a wave of self-pity and remorse. When dawn comes both the moon and the man are gone, leaving Josie with a new challenge to her already broken heart’s capacity for infinite love and forgiveness.



Inspired by the unhappy final chapters in the life of O'Neill's ne’er-do-well older brother, James, the play is singular within O'Neill's body of work for its forgiving spirit. Here, O'Neill grants Jamie absolution as he nears the end of a self-destructive existence.



Without a doubt, Josie Hogan is one of the two greatest roles Eugene O'Neill ever wrote for women. She’s a great, big, towering, barefoot Irish woman with a sharp tongue and ruined reputation. It’s a tough role to play in already tough as the play.

A Moon for the Misbegotten illuminates a search for redemption through an unlikely and magnificent love story. And yet, sadly, another's love cannot save you; we are ~~ all of us ~~ responsible for our own salvation.

[Comfortably · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εκεί που νομίζεις ότι το να κλαις διαβάζοντας ένα βιβλίο είναι σημάδι αναγνωστικής νεότητας που το 'χεις αφήσει πίσω πια, στα σκάει ο Ο'Νηλ με το Ένα Φεγγάρι για τους Καταραμένους και δε ξέρεις από που σου 'ρθε. Και θέλεις να μιλήσεις για αυτό, να γράψεις αλλά οι λέξεις σου 'χουν κάτσει κόμπος στο λαιμό και δεν πάνε ούτε πάνω ούτε κάτω. Μέγας δραματουργός ο Ο'Νηλ, με δύσκολη ενήλικη ζωή, που διαπότισε το έργο του απ'άκρη σ'ακρη.

Στο Ένα Φεγγάρι για τους Καταραμένους, το τελευταίο ολοκληρωμένο έργο του συγγραφέα, που θεωρείται συνέχεια του Ταξίδι μιας μεγάλης μέρας μέσα στη νύχτα, συναντάμε απλή γλώσσα, ποιητικό λόγο, και σχεδόν μηδενική πλοκή.

Το έργο διαρκεί μια μέρα και μια νύχτα. Ο Ο'Νηλ δομεί έτσι τη γραφή του που η μέρα είναι γεμάτη κωμικά στοιχεία ενώ η νύχτα ξεχειλίζει τραγικότητα. Η αντίθεση αυτή μόνο παράταιρη δε μοιάζει μα καταφέρνει να λειτουργήσει καταπληκτικά στην κορύφωση της αγωνίας και της συγκίνησης του αναγνώστη.

Στο Κονέκτικατ, συναντάμε τα τρία κεντρικά πρόσωπα του έργου που θα ρθουν αντιμέτωπα με τις ανεπάρκειες τους, τις επιθυμίες τους, τις ψευδαισθήσεις, τις ενοχές και τις εξαρτήσεις τους.
Ο αλκοολικός και ξεπεσμένος ηθοποιός Τζιμ, με τη μεγάλη ζωή στο Μπροντγουει, εν δυνάμει κληρονόμος και ιδιοκτήτης ενός χέρσου κομματιού γης. Ο Φιλ, φτωχό μετανάστης, σκληρός και αυταρχικός πατέρας, εγκαταλελειμμένος από τους γιους του, αγρότης στο νοικιασμένο κομμάτι γης του Τζιμ. Η Τζόσι, η νεαρή κόρη του Φιλ, μια γυναίκα καθ εικόνα και κατ ομοίωση του πατέρα της στο φαίνεσθαι, σκληρή, δυνατή, με έντονη προσωπικότητα, διαφορετική από το κλασσικό γυναικείο πρότυπο (κοροιδεύει τη γυναικεία της φύση).

Τρεις περιθωριοποιημένοι χαρακτήρες που οδεύουν με τραγικό τρόπο προς το χαμό τους, με μασκαρεμένη την ψυχή, δέσμιοι των ονείρων και της απομυθοποίησης τους, της κοινωνίας αλλά και της ίδιας της οικογένειας.

Ο Ο'Νηλ βάζει στα στόματα των ηρώων του σπαρακτικούς και αφόρητα ρεαλιστικούς διαλόγους, καταδεικνύοντας την εσωτερική τους διάλυση και την ψυχική εγκατάλειψη.
Τα φαντάσματα του παρελθόντος έχουν εγκατασταθεί μέσα τους και έχουν αλλοιώσει τις μορφές τους.
Η απαγκίστρωση απ το παρελθόν μοιάζει αδύνατη και οι ήρωες μας είναι και παραμένουν καταραμένοι.

".. Από μένα Τζόσι θ ακούσεις την αλήθεια. Γιατί εσύ κι εγώ ανήκουμε στην φάρα. Μπορεί να κοροιδεύουμε την κοινωνιά, αλλά τον εαυτό μας δε τον ξεγελάμε, όπως τόσοι και τόσοι, ό,τι και αν κάνουμε.. ούτε και να ξεφύγουμε απ τον εαυτό μας, όπου και αν πάμε. Είτε στον Άδη, είτε στον Παράδεισο, θα βρίσκουμε εκεί τα φαντάσματά μας να περιμένουν για να μας καλωσορίσουν.. άγρυπνα, με θολά, αναμνηστικά μάτια όπως έγραψε ο Ροσέτι. Δε ρωτάς πως τα κατάλαβα όλα Τζόσι. Προσποιείσαι πολύ. Το ίδιο κάνουνε κι άλλοι. Τους έχω ακούσει στο Χάνι. Ολοι τους λένε ψέματα ο ένας στον άλλο. Κανείς δε θέλει να παραδεχτεί πώς το μόνο που εισέπραξε ήτανε μια σφαλιάρα στη μούρη, όταν νομίζει πως τη σφαλιάρα την έδωσαν ένα σωρό άλλοι. Μην τους κατηγορείς. Και ξέρουνε πώς εσύ δε δίνεις φράγκο για τα ψέματα που λένε.."

Οι άνθρωποι έγιναν αυτό που προσποιούνταν ότι είναι λέει ο Σέπαρντ. Η διεισδυτική ματιά του Ο'Νηλ κάνει βουτιά στις ψυχές του Τζιμ και της Τζόσι και βάζει το φεγγάρι να φωτίσει τα βάρη και τις ενοχές τους, τη βία και την αθωότητα των χαρακτήρων τους, την κεκαλυμμένη πραγματικότητα τους, σε μια συγκλονιστική σκηνή εξομολόγησης και αγωνιώδους ικεσίας για λύτρωση.

".. Έλα, έλα αγάπη μου. Ξεκουράσου λίγο ακόμα.. Δεν έκανε τπτ να με λυπήσει. Δεν ήξερα πως είχε κιόλας πεθάνει.. πως ήταν μια ακόλαστη ψυχή που ήρθε να με βρει στο φως του φεγγαριού, να ξομολογηθεί και να βρει συχώρεση και γαλήνη για μια νύχτα.."

Είναι ήδη νεκροί?
Ο Ο'Νηλ στο έργο αυτό - πέρα από όλα τα άλλα - μιλάει απροκάλυπτα για την κατάθλιψη και τα ενοχικά συμπλέγματα με τρόπο οριακά σοκαριστικό.

Υπάρχει διαφυγή?
Αυτό μένει στον αναγνώστη να το διαπιστώσει.

Ο Ο'Νηλ θεωρείται ο πατέρας του ρεαλισμού στο σύγχρονο αμερικάνικο θέατρο. Όμως, συναντάμε εδώ - όπως και σε άλλα έργα του - διαστάσεις "μεταφυσικές" που κάνουν τους ήρωές του πολυεπίπεδους. Να το πω αλλιώς, φτιάχνει μέσα στο ρεαλιστικό κόσμο των έργων του έναν άλλο φαντασιακό κόσμο. Μα και οι δύο τους είναι τόσο σφιχτά δεμένοι που είναι μάταιο να προσπαθήσεις να τους διαχωρίσεις.
Αυτός ο δεσμός είναι ο δίαυλος επικοινωνίας με τον αναγνώστη.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

though written around the same time (1941-43), long day's journey into night was first performed upon the stage some nine years after its sequel, a moon for the misbegotten. the former, eugene o'neill's autobiographical masterpiece, takes place about a decade prior to moon's drama.

jim (or "jamie" in journey - both based on o'neill's real-life older brother), now older, cynical, and nearly beaten by life, has all but succumbed to his alcoholism. still plagued (emotionally, that is) by the death of his mother, jim is consumed by guilt and shame. as a fitting and imperfect (if unrequited) complement to jim's character, josie - the tall, well-built, and tough-talking 28-year old irishwoman - is the daughter of phil hogan, jim's lessee. while much of the story revolves around hogan and josie's farm, and the threat of it being sold by jim - the unspoken love between josie and jim (and their myriad conflicting feelings) provides for the play's real upheaval.

while perhaps not as arresting as its predecessor, a moon for the misbegotten is still an accomplished and affecting work of theater. o'neill was quite adept at parsing the nuances of human relationships - often exposing the many ways things forever left unsaid, unacknowledged, or otherwise unaccounted for erode the individual and all those around them (via addiction, indifference, pipe dreams, or emotional unavailability). in o'neill's nobel prize citation, the swedish academy notes "the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." over six decades since his passing, o'neill remains one of the finest playwrights of any generation.

you can take the truth, josie - from me. because you and i belong to the same club. we can kid the world but we can't fool ourselves, like most people, no matter what we do - nor escape ourselves no matter where we run away. whether it's the bottom of a bottle, or a south sea island, we'd find our own ghosts there waiting to greet us - "sleepless with pale commemorative eyes," as rossetti wrote.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I feel like this play would fit the definition of "dated" even when it was written eighty years ago. In fact this is the problem I have with all of O'Neill's plays.

Of his plays, I give Long Days Journey into Night some praise because the over-the-top drama reminded me of a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and the madness felt quite convincing. A Moon for the Misbegotten feels different. While the character of Josie is three-dimensional, the men around her feel like cutouts. I guess overall O'Neill's plays tend to trigger my own trauma from growing up in a narcissistic family. Too much manipulation and selfishness combined with a somber and purely cognitive view of the world. This play is known for its compassion at the end but it felt phony to me or maybe it could amount to fleeting compassion - at best.

Years ago I visited O'Neill's historic home, the Tao Home, which is managed by the National Park Service. It is quite interesting architecturally and the interior is filled with artifacts from around the world and the Far East in particular. The exterior has a southwest desert adobe motif even though the home and farm sit on a hill near Oakland with sweeping vistas of the San Ramon valley below. Of note, O'Neill and his wife Carlotta were dog lovers and there is even a pet cemetery. I don't believe they had any children. O'Neill's struggles with alcoholism and depression are well documented and in one way or another a dark vibe permeates the Tao Home.

[04SalenaM · Rating 5 out of 5]

What struck me the most about this play was Josie; the oldest daughter was very big and broad and yet still described and beautiful. She was an Irish woman and very rough. She didn’t take much crap from nobody. She even knew how to put her daddy in place. I liked that she didn’t let anybody step on her just because her family didn’t have a lot of money. She did what she wanted to do and she wasn’t a wild a child she was very smart and knew right from wrong. After I got through reading over the very beginning part about Josie and her dad I started to get bored though. The writing and of the play and the way words were said and how slow it all seemed to flow really made it hard for me to stay into the play. I like what the whole thing was suppose to be about but it was very hard to get into it. The play made me feel happy and glad to be woman because Josie made it great to be a woman, an independent woman especially. The play also made me feel like I was wondering about the characters. Wondering what they would do next. Always let your heart and you yourself make your decisions in life, it’s your life, your stress, your problems no one else’s and so you make the choices for it not others.

[Michael P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I once found this to be a profoundly moving and sensitive play. My consciousness has been raised, for it now seems wrongly male-centric. The story is all about Jamie and his needs, not Josie and hers, which are just as valid. I judge it from a perspective alien to the time when the work was written and so can be generous with the star parts, but this now seems a male fantasy in which this women is used just like the whores James has always used, only chastely, for forgiveness. Unlike the whores, Josie doesn't get a penny out of it. She has a rum deal.

[Moira]

This e-book is so poorly formatted it is nearly unreadable on the Kindle. For example:

MIKE--That's nice talk for a woman. You've a
tongue as dirty as
the Old Man's.

JOSIE--(impatiently) Don't start preaching, like you
love to, or
you'll never go.

I'm sorry I bought this!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect from this play, but was pleasantly surprised. I had to read it over the weekend for a class. The assignment was to pick an American Realist author and perform a scene from one of his/her plays. I thought the realist period ended in the late 1800s, but apparently it continued on past the moderns and almost into the contemporaries. I'd heard of O'Neill's plays, but never read any and was especially apprehensive to read this considering I hadn't read its prequel, A Long Day's Journey into Night. The play follows the relationship between three characters: Josie; her Irish farmer father, Hogan; and her would be love interest, Jim. The story takes place over a day and involves a scheme between the father and daughter to get back at Jim for selling the farm out from under them. Throughout the scheme Jim's true intentions are revealed (as well as Hogan's) and there's a nice bit of redemption at the end. I have to admit that I was a bit bored during Act I, but as their stories progressed, I became more interested, and even more sympathetic toward the flawed characters. Josie is a big, tough, sturdy girl, who is fully convinced she is unlovable; it was nice to see her let down her guard and allow herself to be loved (although at times, I found her character getting a bit sappy). The relationship between father and daughter is fun to follow as well. They seem like a couple of selfish curmudgeons, yet they do have compassion for a certain few. Hogan clearly admires his daughter, despite his frequent insults, as she is one of the few people who will stand up to him. Given the bouts of disillusionment and excessive drinking from the flawed characters, I felt O'Neill would have fit right in with Fitzgerald or even Hemingway.

[Marija · Rating 5 out of 5]

In some ways, I do prefer this sequel to Long Day's Journey into Night. A Moon for the Misbegotten takes place approximately ten years after the events of the former play, focusing on the final days of James Tyrone, Jr, who’s drowned himself in alcohol to help ward off those personal demons that haunted and tormented his memories for all these years. Throughout these years, he’s looked for purity and innocence—a love that he could truly cherish, and seems to have finally found it in the form of the tall, plain Josie Hogan.

What makes this play more beautiful than Long Day’s Journey into Night is the lyrical quality to O’Neill’s dialogue. Like the former play, there’s the dark murky sense of bitterness and sadness paired with a bleak sense of humor. But here, there’s also a sense of tangible hope and happiness that manages to shine through, like the moonlight that brings James and Josie together that night on the steps of Josie’s front porch.

Though the play does offer some happiness for its characters, it’s also bittersweet. But then again, I only know of one true happy Eugene O’Neill play, that being Ah, Wilderness!.

Regardless, this is definitely a beautiful play and one of my favorites.

[Emily]

JOSIE: [Deeply moved—pityingly] I know. I've felt all
along it was that sorrow was making you—[She pauses—gently] Maybe if you talked about your grief for her, it would help you. I think it must be all choked up inside you, killing you.”

[The two make a strangely tragic picture in the wan dawn light--this big sorrowful woman hugging a haggard-faced, middle-aged drunkard against her breast, as if he were a sick child.]

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

O’Neill’s plot is hackneyed male fantasy (broken man finds peace in arms of virgin); but, in telling it, he strikes pleasing notes of pathos and acceptance.

[Yu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because I was looking for a quote. There is a source saying the quote I was looking for is from this book. I don't know whether I should trust my eyes or the book, anyway I didn't find it.

Eugene O'Neill is the grandpa for American serious drama, but this one I really don't like it. It has too much burden back the scene, too much social and other background. I prefer plot with more dramatic change like Shakespears etc. This one, I read it as if it is a play of Schiller's. But it is way too plain for me.

But I could see a small trace of modernism, and it also reminds me Camus' Outsider when Tyrone was confessing about the death of his mom. That is a good part of this play. But still, I was expecting more.

[Aiden Xiang · Rating 5 out of 5]

the moon offers no comfort for the troubled soul...may he die in sleep !

[CKPineapple · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Eugene O’Neill and wow… what a start! A phenomenal dramedy which hooks you the moment it begins.

The writing flows incredibly well and the humour is brilliantly done — if you’re familiar with the type of family who will rip each other’s throats but will defend each other to the death, this is the perfect story for you.

But what truly elevates this to 5 stars are the revelations of Josie and Jim. Plot upon plots and schemes upon schemes are slowly unravelled to present, what is essentially two lonely individuals (stuck in their predicaments) just desperate for companionship. And gosh… that ending! 💔

Favourite quote? “She’s happy to be where I can’t hurt her ever again. She’s rid of me at last. For God’s sake, can’t you leave her alone even now? For God’s sake, can’t you let her rest in peace?”

Favourite moment? The confessions near the end of Act 3.

[kate :~) · Rating 4 out of 5]

freud would love this

[Raimo Wirkkala · Rating 4 out of 5]

The great American playwright here brings to a fitting conclusion the story of the family Tyrone that began with "A Long Day's Journey Into Night". The Jim Tyrone of this play is the logical extension of the Jamie of the other. For anyone familiar with the history of this material it is impossible to read Tyrone's lines without hearing the voice of Jason Robards in your head.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ouch. This is painful reading for a (former) raging alcoholic.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this is not the author's best-known play, and although it has a lot of very cringeworthy elements (more about this anon), there is a lot about this play to appreciate.  Without having any particularly sympathetic characters, a characteristic problem of the author's plays, there is nonetheless a lot of very poignant material here that relates to the author's own life and his own approach to the theater.  With a small cast and a very narrow setting, this is a play that allows the author to explore the interior life and contradictions of the various characters and their ineffectual attempts at reaching out beyond their experience in order to build intimacy.  Without sharing in the characteristic vices of the main characters of the play, there is a lot in this play I am able to relate to as both an observer of the suffering of others and the unhappiness of experiencing the tension between fear and longing when it comes to expanding beyond life as we have experienced it.  This play is a poignant reminder that those who have become accustomed to a particular sort of experience have a hard time moving beyond it and overcoming it, something we ought to keep in mind when it comes to judging others and the way they live their lives.

The play itself is about 100 pages and is divided into four acts.  In the first act we see Josie help her brother escape and make his own way in the world, while not viewing his current state very highly, and then charming with her irate father and dealing with their landlord Jim Tyrone and someone who wants to buy the property.  In the second act we see Josie talk with her drunk father while she is waiting (so far in vain) for Jim to show up and cuddle with her.  In the third act Tyrone shows up and there is a long conversation in which both of them struggle to go beyond their decadence and seek a genuine relationship with the other that is not sexual in nature, but something that might be recognized by themselves and others as a form of love.  The fourth act shows the characters returned as before, only without a great deal of hope that anything will improve, or that there will be intimacy for each other to move beyond the phony relationships and playacting that they have known in their dealings with others.

Indeed, the center of this play is the emotionally incestuous relationship between Phil and Josie Hogan.  Father and daughter share a love of tricking others and a lot of hostile but loving verbal banter.  Josie is portrayed as a bit of a slattern and a slut, and Phil is one of those alcoholic ne'er-do-wells.  Meanwhile, Jim Tyrone is hostile to his father and sees in Josie something pure despite her highly sexual and provocative behavior.  Josie hopes for love but lacks the faith that anyone could love her, so she does not act necessarily very lovable.  Both her and Jim are truly misbegotten in that their troubling relationships with their fathers prevents them from having intimate and warm relationships with others or being able to truly move on from the past.  There is a lot of insight here in the way that people can idealize the relationships that others have with parents and the subtle ways in which parents can greatly harm their children through emotionally complicated relationships which hinder children from forming their own ties with someone as a potential spouse.  One wonders how much the author's own experience with his family gave him insight to the harm that alcoholism and related emotional struggles cause to children growing up in such families.

[Brandon Pytel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In O'Neill's sequel to Long Day's Journey into Night, Jim is eleven years older, more dependent on the bottle than ever before, and back from the big lights of Broadway for one last chance at love under the moonlight. The potential lover is Josie Hogan, a big Irish girl who has a loose reputation and an alcoholic swindler of a father. When things start to look south for the Hogans, they try to mend the situation by tricking Jim into marrying Josie. After the score is settled, we see the raw Jim, returning to Josie under the moonlight, buried in bourbon and the still of the night, craving just one thing: peace. Do we obtain this peace through love, or the comfort from work ethic of the American Dream, like Tyrone before Jim, or through something far more sinister? As Jim mourns his path, the decisions he's made, his loose ways with women, the death of his family, he looks to Josie to comfort him. But even she cannot pull him out of his state, a an emptiness and loneliness that not love, but only death can cure. Though Jim is lost in his hopelessness, with a worthless life, perhaps Josie is not. In this beautiful tragedy of empty love and loss, O'Neill faces one of his most powerful demons: the self-destructive force that was his brother. Josie is the only one capable, and innocent enough, to see this objectively.

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read "Moon for the Misbegotten" for an online literature course. It's a short play, written by Eugene O'Neill in the 1940s about a large, in-control, basically good-willed and good-humored woman named Josie who works beside her father on their farm, though she's actually much stronger than he is. Her younger brothers have all run off (with her help) because they can't stand working under their ill-tempered and often drunk father. Josie, who proudly (and to my amusement) proclaims herself a slut throughout the novel, is actually in love with Jim Tyrone, an older man, very rich, who lives nearby and also owns the land the Hogans farm on. However, even though Jim returns her affections in his heart, they have a complicated relationship in which both deny being attracted to the other and Jim tries to steer Josie away because he knows he'd be no good for her. He's a drunk, for one thing, and he also has some issues in his past that leave him a bit of an emotional wreck. During a drunken fight with Josie's father, Jim says he's going to sell their land, which propels the Hogans to form a plan that will let them keep their land and get Jim to marry Josie.

"A Moon for the Misbegotten" wasn't bad and it wasn't good. Just alright. Sometimes the dialogue was too blunt for my taste and repetitive too. But Josie and Jim are unique characters with a story to tell and it's interesting to consider that this play was written in the 1940s, considering some of the language and content. It was quite controversial at its debut, I learned, and rightfully so if you think of the movies coming out of Hollywood at the time.

I don't think I'd ever read a play for fun, so I can't say I'd recommend this. But if you do have to read this, don't dread it. It's quick and it's not a bad story.

Find more book reviews at A Quick Red Fox.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one stuck with me (I read it in high school) for some reason. Maybe it's because it's a pretty decent portrait of a high spirited but yet pretty anxious woman stuck in a patriarchal and gossipy small town. O'Neill reads as pretty melodramatic to me now, but it was pretty innovative to show characters unable to get out of their miserable circumstances and succumbing to despair. Compare to 1940s Hollywood where even the most dramatic scripts have relatively happy endings.

[David Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

People just don't write plays like this anymore.

A sequel of sorts to "Long Day's Journey," this play focuses on the tenant farmer of the Tyrone family. His daughter, Josie, is one of the all time great roles.

[Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Jamie Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night, and was really excited when I discovered he got another a play!

...yeah, no. Just stick with Long Day's Journey.

[Thebooksoftiti · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

I really liked the Josie's character and the fact that it does not have a happy ending.

[Michael P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play may be a bit less misogynist than I once thought, but it still privileges male needs over female and that is a problem. Nevertheless, a great play.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

We always come to a book with preconceptions. I came to A Moon for the Misbegotten with hope. For all his ponderousness I like Eugene O’Neill and A Moon for the Misbegotten is usually placed with Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh as one of his last three major works – and I like the other two plays with their detailed naturalism. And when I started reading A Moon for the Misbegotten and found it a slightly stodgy thing I remembered the warning that O’Neill always performs better on the stage than he reads on the page. But I still had problems. There is a lot of slightly clumsy plot exposition at the beginning of the play, but maybe a strong production can disguise that. A lot of the first act is built around Hogan and his daughter Josie, then Hogan and Tyrone, but Hogan seems too close to the comic/charming rascal stage Irishman to really convince, other than as an amusing theatrical turn. The comic scene with the wealthy neighbour seems a little obvious and heavy in its jokiness. But maybe Hogan can gain a greater life in the playing. The real centre of the play, however, is the relationship between Josie and James Tyrone. For me the strongest part of the play is from Tyrone’s reappearance towards the end of Act 2 through the beginning of Act 3. Josie and Tyrone have deep feelings for each other, but there are manoeuvrings. Tyrone is their landlord and Josie thinks he has agreed to sell their farm to the wealthy neighbour (this is on her father’s say so), so she is plotting revenge, although with confused motivations and emotions. Tyrone seems to have an idealized and delusional sense of Josie: despite her denials he thinks of her as virginal. But then things are cleared up: Tyrone is not double crossing them by selling the farm and it turns out he was right about Josie’s virginity. I’m then not sure what the play is doing. And there is something very puritanical about all this. Josie is contrasted to the ‘tarts’ Tyrone has spent time with and talks of with disgust. This could be seen as Tyrone trying to transfer his self-disgust onto the women, but the play itself seems to validate the contrast between Josie and the ‘tarts’, not least by valuing Josie’s virginity as a sign of purity. If I did not know O’Neill’s other work I would probably think A Moon for the Misbegotten was a bizarre and stolid thing, maybe a sort of psychodrama that expressed aspects of O’Neill’s personality in a strangely undigested way – as it is I will accept the possibility that I am failing to respond in a useful way. And I am aware its reputation was as an oddity until the 1970s Broadway production with Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards, so maybe it just works much better in a sympathetic production.

[Patrick Bowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Eugene O’Neil play I have read, and having read many Irish plays I was interested to read a consciously Irish-American playwright. The play is an excellent straddling of the Atlantic in the dialogue, the plot, and the underlying message. The vernacular and references are predominantly Irish, and Josie and Hogan have a characteristically Irish deliberately humorous coarseness and rude tribalism. Their frequent derision of the Standard Oil robber baron as “English” is a perfect representation of the fusion of their Irishness with 1910s populist American politics.

The story is very well written and entertaining. Some of the dialogue is hilarious. The twists in the story are very surprising, and I felt just as surprised as Josie each time—and evidently very gullible. I think the Irish tragedy of the story also has a spiritually American element. The dynamic between the wealthy and poor Irish captures the Irish-American experience, especially in the first half of the 20th century. Though Jim Tyrone is Irish, he spends time on Broadway, is their landlord, and is most importantly wealthy. As a result, they think they can trust him not to sell their farm even though they’re delinquent on rent but his wealth has given them this distrust and envy that they push down because it feels wrong even for them.

Jim Tyrone’s dilemma is on the other hand is that despite his wealth he is not free from the Irish tropes of family sorrow, tendency to repress emotions, and alcoholism. His wealth has not brought him happiness and has actually left his disconnected from the tools of grieving that his heritage has given him. He seemingly futilely overcompensates with poetry and “Mother Macree.” He truly loves and sees beauty in the poor domineering Irish farm woman in a way no one else does. He has more faith in and respect for the poor Irish than most. But most of all, he seeks some forgiveness and mental peace that he can only get from that world.

Phenomenal story that I’m glad I read. It captures the spirit of the Irish-American story that I hoped to find, and it was funny and beautiful. I’m definitely going to read another O’Neil play soon.

[EJ Paras · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Let’s sit down where the moon will be in our eyes and we’ll see romance.”

Boy, this is the definitive Eugene O’Neill play in my mind. Acts 3 and 4 are absolutely shattering. SHATTERING. Poor Jamie. Poor Josie. Poor Phil. Poor everyone.

“What’s come over you, Jim? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I have. My own. He’s punk company.”

The dynamic between Jamie and Josie is, for the most part, so pure. It’s a vital and necessary source for life for each of them — perhaps more urgently for Jamie, but Josie’s personal plight and desires are, depending how you view each of their situations, more tragic.

“Thanks, Josie. I mean, for not believing I’m a rotten louse.”

The pain! The past! The memories. What we can’t ever, ever change. Best we can do is seek solace, or a night to not dwell on the mistakes.

Maybe what I love most about this play is that the tragedy of its ending still has a layer of hopefulness. When a person’s soul is dead and they have nothing else to live for — that person is good as gone. To provide someone a reprieve from this death of the heart & soul… that’s as vital a service as any.

There are a couple Jamie monologues that I think I want to add to my arsenal. I don't think people can suspend disbelief that a Filipino-American can play Irish for Long Day's Journey Into Night (I mean, of course they can), but there's something about this play that seems more entrenched in the fantastical, in specificity of emotion rather than race, that gives this potential to be more colorblind for casting.

“God forgive me, it’s a fine end to all my scheming, to sit here with the dead hugged to my breast, and the silly mug of the moon grinning down, enjoying the joke!”

[Martin Denton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The play traces a day, night, and morning after in the lives of two lonely people. One is James Tyrone, Jr., more than a decade after the events of another Eugene O'Neill epic, Long Day's Journey Into Night--he's a man who hates that he has followed in his despised father's footsteps and become a hack actor, and who hates even worse that he drowns his disappointment in drinking and whoring. The other is Josie Hogan, the proud daughter of the Irish pig farmer to whom Tyrone leases a small, infertile patch of land in Connecticut. That Josie and Jim should be soulmates seems utterly unlikely, but it's so: both of them live by holding onto dreams and illusions that have shaped their very natures. And they're the only ones who can penetrate the other's illusions with comfort and safety.

I believe a key theme of the play to be along these lines: only the truth can set us free...but once we free ourselves, what we find in ourselves is often too painful to allow us to continue. One of the characters in A Moon for the Misbegotten learns this harsh lesson, while the other may well transcend it (I will leave it for you to discover which is which, if you don't know the play).

Another theme is stated by Josie late in the play: "...I have all kinds of love for you--and maybe this is the greatest of all--because it costs so much."

[Hormoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

* Oh, you great fool! As if I gave a damn what happened after! I'll have had tonight and your love to remember for the rest of my days!


*
TYRONE

(Speaks in a tired, empty tone, as if he felt he ought to explain something to her-something which no longer interests him.)

Listen, and I'll tell you a little story, Josie. All my life I had just one dream. From the time I was a kid, I loved racehorses. I thought they were the most beautiful things in the world. I liked to gamble, too. So the big dream was that some day I'd have enough dough to play a cagey system of betting on favorites, and follow the horses south in the winter, and come back north with them in the spring, and be at the track every day. It seemed that would be the ideal life-for me. He pauses.

JOSIE

Well, you'll be able to do it.

TYRONE

No. I won't be able to do it, Josie. That's the joke. I gave it a try- out before I came up here. I borrowed some money on my share of the estate, and started going to tracks. But it didn't work. I played my system, but I found I didn't care if I won or lost. The horses were beautiful, but I found myself saying to myself, what of it? Their beauty didn't mean anything. I found that every day I was glad when the last race was over, and I could go back to the hotel-and the bottle in my room.

(He pauses, staring into the moonlight with vacant eyes.)