Playwright: Eugene O'Neill. At: Eclipse Theatre Company at The Athenaeum, 2936 N. Southport. Tickets: 1-773-93506875; www.eclipsetheatre.com; $28. Runs through: Sept. 2
Here's a sweet, warm, satisfying show splendidly embraced by Eclipse Theatreright down to its proudly sentimental heart. First produced in 1933, Ah, Wilderness! (the title quotes Persian poet Omar Khayyam) is the only comedy by America's dour greatest playwright, Eugene O'Neill. It's the autobiography he didn't have, the daylight flip side of his monumental Long Day's Journey Into Night, the writing of which brought O'Neill to tears as he wrestled with his family ghosts.
Ah, Wilderness! takes place July 4, 1906, in New London, Conn.the same as Long Day's Journey into Night (set in 1912)and revolves around 17-year-old Richard Miller. (O'Neill was 17 in 1906.) This time, O'Neill provides a wonderful imaginary family to support Richard's adolescent romantic, poetic and political ideas. What if O'Neill's dad had been tolerant and caring instead of an egocentric skinflint? What if his older brother had been a frat boy instead of an alcoholic whoremonger? What if his mother had been the warm-hearted soul of the household instead of a morphine addict? Alcoholism, ubiquitous in O'Neill plays, is confined to a sympathetic supporting character, Uncle Sid.
Ah, Wilderness! could be a model for a family sitcom written with wit, style and a sense of the theatrical. Long for a comedy and written in three acts (played by Eclipse in about two-and-a-half hours with one intermission), the play is filled with brilliant set pieces: the family dinner, the scene where Richard meets a prostitute, the father-son talk on the facts of life, the love scene on the beach. Along the way O'Neill provides lively period-accurate comments on then-radical literature by Wilde, Shaw, Swinburne and Ibsen. It's not simply a valentine to the family O'Neill never had, but a valentine to a way of life already vanished in 1933 (territory explored again by Thornton Wilder in Our Town in 1938).
Director Kevin Hagan and company have captured the spirit and attitude of the play with unfussy honesty and heartfelt playing, suitably aided by period-perfect design elements. Hagan's sepia-toned set design is inspired by old-fashioned wing-and-drop scenery, with some references to the actual O'Neill home in New London. Rachel Lambert's period-accurate clothing is attractive without being formal and has an air of summer about it. It's an eye-pleasing show altogether (Mike Winkelman, lighting design). The 13-person cast is a rock-solid ensemble right down to the cameo roles, but first among equals are Brian Parry's pitch-perfect portrayal of Nat MillerRobert Young, eat your heart outand trimmed-down Alex Weisman's Richard, whose innocence always remains obvious despite his brash tongue, and Cheri Chenoweth's Essie Miller deliciously alternating between Mother Hen and tack-sharp comedy.
Ah, Wilderness! is rarely produced; don't pass up this excellent staging.