Word: stuhlbarg
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Since its debut 30 years ago, the members of the doomed Tyrone family have become stock characters on the American stage, as familiar, and as problematic, as our own families. Edmund (Michael Stuhlbarg), the character representing O'Neill himself, is the frail, morbid young poet who in the course of the titular "day" finds that his mysterious "summer cold" is a case of deadly consumption, or tuberculosis. Worry over his weakening condition has driven his mothlike mother, Mary (Claire Bloom) to succumb to her addiction to morphine, a drug she has been hooked on since Edmund's birth 24 years...
...Michael Stuhlbarg, as Edmund, gives the most unsteady performance of the protagonists, at some moments scintillating, at others invoking a sit-com like shrillness as Edmund screams at all the other characters to shut up. Again, the problem is partially with the role-- the Edmund character, a stand in for the playwright himself, must serve as straight man to the other characters' various emotional defenses and attacks, a non-character for them to play against...
...moments in which O'Neill allows Edmund "the touch of a poet", the artistic leanings present in O'Neill himself at the time the play is set, the writing is some of the best of the play. Stuhlbarg rises to the occasion with an intoxicating conviction and a fine control of intonation and gesture belying his top-notch training. His handling of the monologues describing Edmund's time at sea, and his recitation of the Decadent authors Edmund reads, are some of the finest, most piercing moments of the evening. The moments immediately proceeding these, where Stuhlbarg performs a drunken...
...Journey" is not as obviously renegade as some of Ron Daniels' recent productions at the ART, but a director's hand does seem to weigh heavily on much of the production. The staging often reflects the utter discomfort of the characters themselves. Many scenes find the Camp and Stuhlbarg seated on a bench facing the front of the stage, but awkwardly twisted so that their backs are turned to the audience, their faces hidden in the mock-wall of the set. At numerous other times, listening characters have their backs to the audience so that their facial reactions are hidden...
...accent. The play stands by itself, an unblinking testament to all-American dysfunction at the very site, the vacation home, where family togetherness is supposed to be at its best. Fortunately for us, this timeworn standard serves as a steady summit from which innovative actors like Camp, and occasionally Stuhlbarg, can find sure footing, then soar...