'Misbegotten' performance brilliant

Brilliant. Excellent. Powerful. These arethe words that describe the Saturday night performance of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten." The show opened Friday at the Wells-Metz Theatre on Jordan Ave.\n"Moon" is set in a beat-up farm house in 1923 Connecticut, with drinking pals James Tyrone, Jr. (Ira Amyx) and tenant farmer Phil Hogan (Chris Nelson) amusing themselves while in a drunken stupor. In a casual joke, Tyrone says he'll sell his farm and evict Hogan. Hogan, now afraid for his home and way of life, schemes to manipulate the affections between Tyrone and his daughter Josie, played by Sheila Regan.\nThe symbolic curtain rose at 8 p.m. on the dot with Josie milling about the rock-dotted farm, wielding her Irish accent. Normally I consider an accent to be cheap blocking if done badly. Regan's mastery of the accent was continually good and consistent. Her character was the irreverent tomboy who helped her father work the farm who seemed to have classified ads larger than most of the men she supposedly slept with. Her warmth, and range of emotions from happy to angry, from caring to hateful, continually kept the audience paying attention and falling in love with her honesty as a person and as a down to earth country girl.\nJames Tyrone (Ira Amyx) started out the show demonstrating a lack of projection and clarity. I strained to hear him, and he was monotone in his delivery. I basically gave up on him until the third act. And boy, did he come around. His monologue in the third act as he leaned himself on the breasts of Josie talking about his guilt over his mother's death, and his battle with booze brought tears to the woman next to me. I can understand that. I've seen some things on stage that almost made me cry. It wasn't because I liked them, either.\nIf Amyx hadn't have held himself back against his two counterparts earlier in the show, we wouldn't have seen the powerful contrast we did. Amyx is a character actor who captured beautifully the desperate expression of an alcoholic looking for a drink who then became a mean drunk. He played the part showing the inner psyche of someone haunted by bad memories, regrets and the feeling of emptiness depression and addiction brings.\nThe play moved well throughout. The pacing was excellent. It moved at a constant level of energy with distinct levels plunging first into depression, pulling out of it with a laugh line, and then repeating the process. The dialogue was delivered flawlessly. I only recount one or two stumblings that Josie made. IU Physics professor Bennet Brabson sat behind me. When we talked about the show, the first thing he mentioned was the nice closed ending.\n"A Moon for the Misbegotten" is a definite must-see, enhanced by the three-tiered Shakespeare style theatre-in-the-round at the Wells-Metz theatre. Director Steve Decker did a great job tackling one of the most complex works ever written by an American playwright. His talent will serve him well, and I don't usually review things that nicely.