Dark Side of the 'Moon': Kevin Spacey Imports Eugene O'Neill's Sorrowful Gem, 'A Moon for the Misbeg

Apr 08, 06:49 AM

Current Headlines: By Robert Kahn, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Apr. 8--Kevin Spacey has just piloted an SUV out of Boston, where he was filming "21," the fact-based story of six MIT students who learn to count cards, then head to Vegas and make millions playing blackjack. The two-time Academy Award winner plays mentor to one of the students in the movie, which his Trigger Street Pictures is producing. Though the project was compelling enough, odds are that "21" will be the only film Spacey makes this year.

"Every now and then, I'm finding movies that not only interest me, but that I'm able to work around an existing schedule of theater. But the theater is the priority," he says into his cell phone, as he drives down I-95 to New York. "Everything else follows."

The theater in question is London's Old Vic, of which Spacey has been artistic director since 2003. After two tumultuous seasons, the Vic had its biggest success last fall with a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten," starring Spacey and Eve Best. That same production opens on Broadway Monday at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, its original cast intact.

"A Moon for the Misbegotten" is one of only a few O'Neill love stories. The setting is a dilapidated Connecticut farmhouse in 1923, where the quick-tongued Josie Hogan (Best) lives with her conniving father (Colm Meaney of the later "Star Trek" series). One moonlit night, Josie reveals her feelings for their landlord, the boozy, skirt-chasing actor Jim Tyrone (Spacey). O'Neill based Tyrone on his alcoholic older brother, who died not long after the events depicted in "Moon" take place.

"Moon" premiered on Broadway in 1957, but never achieved the popularity of O'Neill plays such as "The Iceman Cometh" (a New York triumph for Spacey eight years ago, also directed by Howard Davies). "Moon" rose again on Broadway in 1973, with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst starring in an acclaimed revival. That effort spurred a television version, the DVD of which Spacey to this day has avoided, "out of fear that I would just steal everything Jason does."

In the mid-1980s, Dewhurst introduced Spacey to Robards, and the two became fast friends on the strength of their mutual interest in O'Neill's work and the coincidence of a shared birthday (July 26, 37 years apart).

"I'd call him up every year and sing 'Happy Birthday,' and he'd answer the same way every time," Spacey recalls, moving into a droll imitation of the late Robards: "Oh, thanks, kid."

A few days after his arrival from New England, Spacey is settling into a cramped dressing room with his black terrier, Minnie. As Spacey unpacks, he ruminates on his attraction to the role of a middle-aged alcoholic actor. "It starts with how much I admire O'Neill," he says.

The playwright's anguish

Spacey, 47, first played James Tyrone Jr. in the 1986 Broadway revival of "Long Day's Journey into Night" starring Jack Lemmon. Jim is first introduced in that other great play based on O'Neill's troubled family, which was beset by alcoholism and other addictions, depression and suicide.

"Jim Tyrone is someone who spent 25 years of his life in a fog because he didn't want to feel, and then he suddenly connects with someone who makes him do just that," Spacey says.

This being O'Neill, it's hardly a spoiler to note that things don't go so well for the two main characters. Jim perceives himself lethal to Josie, telling her at one point, "You don't get me, Josie. You don't know, and I hope to God you never will know."

"Maybe I know more than you think," Josie counters. Tyrone continues as if she hasn't spoken, "There's always the aftermath that poisons you."

English actress Best, making her first trip to New York, says the duo's relationship mirrors the classic dynamic of a woman who wants love and a man who can't cope with intimacy. "It's frustrating and agonizing that he just can't be with her, because his soul is too dark," Best says.

"The American way of expression is so apparent with O'Neill," she says. "It's not like [Russian playwright Anton] Chekhov, where everything is repressed. Everything these characters think, they actually say."

When the Old Vic opened "Moon" in London, it hadn't been produced there for 25 years. On Broadway, by contrast, it was done only seven years ago, with Gabriel Byrne and Cherry Jones starring.

"My feeling is that if a play has a life and a company that comes together, and there's a vision that serves the play well, then audiences will enjoy seeing different interpretations," Spacey says. "Our experience with it so far gives us some degree of confidence that an audience is there."

The Old Vic's success last fall with "A Moon for the Misbegotten" came after a rocky period in its long history, and in particular Spacey's reign. Founded in 1818, the company had long been home to the greatest of England's actors and directors, including John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson. In 1998, however, the family of the Canadian department-store magnate who had restored the theater in 1982 put the 1,000- seat playhouse on the market.

Preserving a historic site

Proposals to make it a themed pub or a lap-dancing club prompted widespread outrage, and the property was acquired by a public trust. That same year, it was booked for the transfer of the hit revival of "The Iceman Cometh" starring Spacey -- who won the Olivier Award (the English Tony) as best actor.

He later became involved in fundraising for the theater and was eventually named to its board of trustees. In 2003, Spacey surprised Hollywood by agreeing to take the reins when the Old Vic once again became a producing theater.

Spacey's first priority was to get people back into the building by doing work that would be "refreshing and inviting to a broader, younger audience." The first production under his leadership was the Dutch comedy "Cloaca," which was a box-office flop. A more unfortunate turn came at the end of his second season, with Robert Altman's muddled production of the Arthur Miller play "Resurrection Blues." One British critic went so far as to call for Spacey's resignation.

"All along, I had felt like it was probably going to take us three or four seasons to really establish ourselves, and we might get some stick, because we made a very clear decision to not do what was expected of us," Spacey says.

Whether "Moon" counts as a vindication, Spacey says the Old Vic is where he thought it would be by season three. More than 600,000 patrons have come through its doors. Youth education, outreach and artistic-development programs are in full swing. On Broadway as in London, 100 "Moon" seats for the under-25 set will be steeply discounted each night.

The theater's current production is John Osborne's "The Entertainer" starring Robert Lindsay, which Spacey is targeting for a New York run next fall. The Old Vic also is the home of Edward Hall's all-male troupe Propeller, which just ended a two-week stint at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Old Vic has entered into a joint producing agreement with BAM for a three-year project with director Sam Mendes to mount two productions a year to play London and New York.

At the time he took over the Old Vic, Spacey said he had "roughly [a] 10-year vision" for the theater, and that he would reside in London, returning stateside to do the occasional film, such as last year's "Superman Returns," in which he played Lex Luthor. With only one more film commitment on tap for 2008, he's pretty much stuck to that plan.

"I do feel that perhaps people are no longer holding their fingers up and checking to see which way the wind is blowing," he says of the Old Vic's progress. "Theatrical beginnings are challenges, and if you go back and study the history of the Royal Shakespeare Company or [the widely respected former National Theatre directors] Trevor Nunn or Richard Eyre, you'll see none of them were welcome when they started, either. I think people have started to realize that we're really staying as a company, that we're committed to it."

WHEN&WHERE"A Moon for the Misbegotten," Monday through June 10 at the Brooks

Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St. Tickets: $82.50-$251.50; same-day student seats age 24 and younger, $26.50. Call 212-307-4100.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

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