Beyond the Horizon (review)

Productions of Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon seem destined to prove that it can be intellectually edifying when read but emotionally unfullfilling when seen. This dichotomy was true of the original production when it opened in 1920 at Broadway's Morosco Theater. Its critics noted that it had lumbering sets, uneven performances, and repetitive dialogue and scenes. Yet, with only minor adjustments made to production elements and script upon its transfer to Broadway's Little Theater, Beyond the Horizon became O'Neill's first Pulitzer Prize-winning piece, one that launched him from off-Broadway to Broadway, where his works remain a mainstay. The recent Off-Broadway production of Beyond the Horizon, directed by Ciaran O'Reilly, which played in the actor-friendly Irish Repertory Theater's intimate performance space, succeeded in solving some of the problems just mentioned while it succumbed to others.

More than enough has been written about O'Neill's efforts to merge elements of ancient drama with American archetypes. O'Reilly softened many of O'Neill's nascent playwriting aims by settling on a naturalistic style of production. O'Reilly allowed the play's character choices and their development to advance the plot rather than emphasize its fatalism, something that can cause the slim plot to play in a labored melodramatic manner. As a result, the philosophical ambiguities inherent in the text emerged. This approach ideally suited the Irish Rep's limited stage area.

Set designer Hugh Landwehr gracefully aided this gentler approach by unifying the play's interior and exterior scenes with a backdrop that covered both walls of the Irish Rep's unique two-sided performance space. The lush and breathtaking array of colors Landwehr masterfully stroked upon his canvas were enhanced and highlighted by the skills of lighting designer Brian Nason. Through combined artistic magic Landwehr and Nason reflected the moods, emotions, and poetic musing voiced through the play's title and characters. Curved planking served as the floor for the interior scenes and as a walkway for the exterior scenes, the slightly bowed surface suggesting waves and perhaps also the characters' unsettled lives. Furniture was brought on as needed during the play's three acts to create the interior scenes. Because there was no suggestion of a house-frame, when on stage the selected essential furniture pieces stood in stark contrast to the visually seductive, impressionistic horizon on the back- and side-drops. Both interior and exterior scenes were also offset by an always present, aged tree but not, as specified in O'Neill's opening stage notes, a garden-of-Eden type of "old, gnarled apple tree . . . [behind which] . . . A snake fence sidles from left to right along the top of the bank." Landwehr's adaptation of O'Neill's description for a set freed the production's design from making a too-obvious metaphorical statement and also solved the scene-change problems that plagued the original version.

Fig. 1.

Johanna Leister (Kate Mayo), Wrenn Schmidt (Ruth Atkins), Patricia Conolly (Mrs. Atkins), and Aimee Laurence (Mary) in Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon at Irish Repertory Theatre (132 West 22nd Street), directed by Ciaran O'Reilly. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Ciaran O'Reilly cast his Mayo brothers with professionals of equivalent acting chops. Lucas Hall embraced his role as the play's protagonist Robert by using his character's progressive physical decline not as a reflection of weakness but as a vehicle for self-examination. Hall conveyed Robert as a compassionate man who sought spiritual enlightenment to cope with his character's incremental physical decline and too early death. Rod Brogan as Andy served as the production's antagonist. He fulfilled his brotherly role as the strong, resilient, and competent youth while also conveying a charming, bumbling, uneducated man trying to nobly rise above circumstances that constantly appeared to thwart him.

Equally complex in characterization but not as fully realized in acting range was Wrenn...