O’Neill’s Formative Years Are Explored at the American Theatre of Actors

To see the very first writings of a legendary playwright performed is always a fascinating endeavor. The ATA’s recent showcase of two of his earliest plays reveals that the iconic Eugene O ‘Neill had a lot up his sleeve before Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh.

Fittingly first up is 1913’s A Wife for a Life, O’Neill’s debut play. This somewhat obscure work is known for being an early use of the trope of men in conversation about an offscreen woman. In this short but bittersweet piece, gold miner Sloan (Jonathan Beebe) sits at a campfire in the Arizona desert, waiting for his young buddy and colleague Jack (Travis Bergmann). But Pete (Paul Maurizio) arrives first, with a telegram for Jack, who exuberantly arrives with a bit of the gold they’ve been counting on discovering. Grabbing a bottle to share, Jack toasts to the gold mine he has named “Yvette”—and hearing that name makes Sloan go cold. It is here that the dramatic tension of Wife rises to a 10, as Sloan hears about Jack’s recent romance, and comes to a devastating realization. He has to turn his face away from Jack as he comes to terms with the fact that this man—who once saved his life—was also the one who helped upend it. Sloan grows to Hamlet-like intensity and indecision as he weighs forgiveness against revenge and ponders his own responsibility in the dissolution of his marriage.

Beebe excels as the haunted Sloan, conveying the heartbreak of a man utterly destroyed but determined to find the high road and get on it before he does something he’ll regret. Travis Bergmann provides a stunning contrast as the high-energy Jack, his jubilance contrasting with Sloan’s despair. The piece ends quickly and satisfyingly, and is well-realized by Director John DeBenedetto and the actors.

The Soap-Operatic Recklessness (also directed by DiBenedetto)quickly follows, just as it did in 1913. Bergmann is dramatically different here from the jovial Jack as the wealthy, brusque Arthur Baldwin, husband of Mildred (Natasha Sahs). There is no real love between the upscale Catskills couple, and the unhappy Mildred has found romance instead in an affair with their chauffeur, Fred (Beebe), which began while Arthur was out of town. As with A Wife for a Life, the actors’ skillful depiction of the intense growing tension among the characters as they ride a metaphorical runaway train toward destruction is what drives the melodramatic narrative. Emmy Potter adds more fire as the scorned, scheming maid Jean, whose revenge-minded meddling leads Arthur to make a terrible, vengeance-driven decision. Maurizio is the couple’s butler, who is forced into complicity by Arthur. The road to the shocking denouement is traversed beautifully by the company, from Maurizio’s growing unease to Sahs’ horror and heartbreak, from Bergmann’s ruthlessness to Beebe’s youthful energy. Having A Wife for a Life as the “opener” for Recklessness adds another layer to the audience experience of both, as the callous Arthur’s actions are in stark contrast to the choice made earlier by the more sensitive Sloan.

The two plays come together to provide a fascinating look at O’Neill’s earliest era, and are another great production from the American Theatre of Actors in its triumphant 50^th season.

All photos provided by Dan Lane Willams Photography