The Theater: New Play in Manhattan, may 13, 1957

A Moon for the Misbegotten was Eugene O'Neill's last play. Finished in 1943, it had a turbulent pre-Broadway road tour in 1947 and closed out of town. Whatever production difficulties it encountered, A Moon has internal troubles that go much deeper. In the current production, three accomplished actors cannot save, or even for long sustain, the play. Nor is the general effect one of crude mass: it is much more one of sheer dead weight. O'Neill's greatest fault—using too many and too flaccid words—flattens out a story that is at best never intense enough;...

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