December 29, 2025: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler

Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), the only American playwright to win the Nobel Prize for literature, has a pronounced reputation and even a Broadway Theatre named for him. Even though he died seventy-two years ago, productions of his plays remain plentiful. Seven years have elapsed since a Broadway revival of his work; a highly successful Iceman Cometh starring Denzel Washington. At present, twenty-five years into the 21st century, we have had a 2016 return of Long Day’s Journey into Night (it’s fifth Broadway revival) with Jessica Lange turning in a Tony Award winning performance as Mary Tyrone, and two separate productions of A Moon for the Misbegotten, one that starred the pairing of Cherry Jones and Gabriel Byrne (2000), and one in 2007 with the British actress Eve Best and Kevin Spacey, who had also done Iceman in London and on Broadway in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Say one thing for O’Neill: even if his plays are long-winded and a bit verbose, actors want to say his lines.

In addition to Iceman’s unsuccessful original mounting in 1946, Moon had also been a failure its first time around in 1957, four years after O'Neill’s death. Coincidentally, it has now been seen in an additional four Broadway revivals, same as Iceman. But there probably would never have been more iterations of Moon had it not been for its 1973 production, which arrived during a blustery winter week right before New Year’s fifty-two years ago tonight. With José Quintero directing two brilliant actors, Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards, the trio reached for the stars and managed not so much a revival as a reawakening to the play’s merits.

In 1947, the esteemed Theatre Guild, which had been producing O’Neill’s plays since the 1920s, mounted a production of Moon in Columbus, Ohio, which was then booked to go on to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit and St. Louis before opening on Broadway. It was rough going. The review in the Detroit Times led with a headline (in red ink, no less) that stated: “O’NEILL PLAY CLOSED FOR OBSCENITY.” Local censors were demanding that “whore” be changed to “tart”; “bastard” to “louse” and “a pig of a woman” to “a cow” (That last one is a genuine head scratcher). Variety called it “a psychopathic Tobacco Road,” which must have really made O’Neill slap his head in despair.

A Moon for the Misbegotten never made it past St. Louis and wouldn’t make it to Broadway until ten years later (and four years after O’Neill’s death) where it only managed a disappointing sixty-eight performances. Dismissed by critics as a lesser work by the master, Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times summed it up when he called it “an uneventful play that lacks the elemental power of an O’Neill drama.” It ran for two months.

It wasn’t until sixteen years later, when Quintero, Robards, and Dewhurst, with an able assist from the great Ed Flanders, created stage magic with Moon. Nothing about the play changed as the playwright was long dead, which meant there was no rewriting. It was simply a matter of audiences (and critics) catching up with the piece when performed by actors who were born to play the two leads, both of which are notoriously difficult to cast. This historic production was thankfully filmed for television and available on Amazon for $19.95 from Broadway Theatre Archive. It is well worth watching as it captures a moment in time when actors the likes of Robards and Dewhurst roamed amongst us mortals.

The production was culled together, almost as if snatched out of thin air, and turned into something profound; not only for Robards, but for everyone involved. The story, as told to me in 2013 by Robards’ and Dewhurst’s agent, Clifford Stevens, went exactly like this:

“Jason called me, it was April [1973], and he said, ‘I gotta do something to help José [Quintero]. He can’t get a job.’ José had a big battle with alcoholism, but now he was on the wagon. And I said, ‘Well, you’ve got a movie in August. What do you want to do between now and August? That’s not a lot of time to put something together.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ve thought about doing [O’Neill’s] A Touch of the Poet.’ And I said, ‘Jason, I couldn’t give Touch of the Poet away . . . that’s not gonna happen.’ And he said, ‘Well, Colleen [Dewhurst] and I have always talked about doing A Moon for the Misbegotten,’ and I said, ‘That’s not an easy play either, but I have a real affection for that one.’”

“So, I sat down and called all the usual suspects; the people who could put together a Broadway tour . . . Kennebunkport, Playhouse in the Park . . . you could get seven or eight weeks, and you could also book a play for one week. They all said, ‘Oh boy, Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst — how about Plaza Suite?’ As soon as I mentioned Misbegotten . . . they froze. So, I was about to call Jason and say, ‘I’m not going to be able to make it happen,’ and then I thought about the Lake Forest Theatre in Chicago. Brian Bedford, who I represented, did many plays there, and I would go out there a lot. So, I called and said, ‘I’ve got Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst to star, I’ve got José Quintero to direct, I’ve got A Moon for the Misbegotten, these are the dates they’re free.’ I was told there was already something booked and I said, ‘Postpone it! I’m putting you on the map!’”

“I called Jason, Colleen, José, and said, “You’re flying to Lake Forest,’ and they all asked, ‘Where is it?” I said, “It’s outside Chicago. It’s a very nice theatre.’ I never thought anything was going to happen with it. Then a few weeks later, I was in London with Betty Bacall, and she was on the phone with Jason talking about their son, Sam. And she said, ‘Clifford’s here, do you want to talk to him?’ I said, ‘How’s it going?” because I hadn’t talked to him in a while, and he said, ‘We’ve got something really good here. We’ve got something really hot.’ I said, ‘You want to go on with it?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’”

“Then the money became hard to raise. One time, when I was up at the farm with Colleen, she said, ‘When we’re in trouble, we call Roger Stevens’ [a renowned producer of the day]. I said, ‘I can call him, but the call would be much better calling from you. With me he might say he’ll think about it, but he’ll do anything for you, especially with Jason attached.’ And he gave us a booking at the Kennedy Center. That went so well that we were able to get the Morosco for eight weeks on an interim booking.”

“If I had to name the greatest opening night I ever went to, it was on that freezing December 29th at the Morosco. Elliot Martin [the producer] couldn’t afford a party, so Jason (who was not making a lot of money at the time), Colleen (who was practically broke), and José (who was always broke), all threw the party. There was a band, food, and then Elliot got up and read Clive Barnes’ review. And Jason said, ‘This night’s not gonna end,’ and he called his friends at the No Name Bar … we all got into taxis … and I remember … I was holding Colleen … and the front of my shirt was soaked with her tears. We knew this was not going to be just eight weeks, and she said, ‘I’ve been in this fucking business for twenty years, I’ve never been in a success.’”

Thank you, to the late, great Clifford Stevens for this remarkable recollection.

Robards’ personal reaction to Misbegotten’s success was one of surprise. “Audiences must be starving for meaningful theatre,” he said. “They are responding to this as though it’s a new play.”

His statement at the time proved more meaningful than he could have known as, over the next twenty-one years, Robards went on to star in six “old plays” on Broadway (four of them by O’Neill). I consider myself one lucky devil that I got to see him in all of them.

I’m sorry to have missed a new production of Moon this past spring resented by London's Almeida Theatre. Starring Michael Shannon and Ruth Wilson, it was described by Time Out Magazine as an “achingly gorgeous take on Eugene O’Neill’s final play.”

Ron Fassler is the author of The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements. For news and "Theatre Yesterday and Today" columns when they break, please subscribe.