The Bonstelle Theatre, Wayne State University's undergraduate performance space, continues it's 2002-2003 Season with Eugene O'Neill's portrait of longings of the human heart, A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Set in 1923 on a barren Connecticut farm, A Moon for the Misbegotten is the story of Josie, a woman of enormous contradictions - commanding and tough on the outside, sensuous, sensitive and sore on the inside; and James Tyrone Jr., a dissipated former actor with astonishing capacity for alcohol and self-destruction, who reach for each other past the obstacles of class, guilt and misunderstanding. Josie's father Phil Hogan, a cantankerous and argumentative Irish drunkard, attempts to forge a relationship between his daughter and Tyrone using the pretext of securing ownership of the farm. These two wounded souls, circling around each other in search of a truthful way to come together as they share their feelings and Bourbon in the long moonlit night, is very nearly a play within the play itself.

One of the great plays of the 20th century, Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten is a requiem about being able to love and be loved despite the masks we wear even with those closest to us, and plumbs the depths of the human spirit, locating its beauty in a single, unadulterated moment holding tremendous redemptive power.

Even in A Moon for the Misbegotten, his final play offered for production, Eugene O'Neill relentlessly pursued the same ghosts that had haunted him throughout his life. He worked with material from his own family, and with the peculiar sorts of flaws, guilt and pain that are associated with being Irish. He wrote Moon as a late post-script to his autobiographical Long Day's Journey Into Night, offering instead a long night's journey into dawn. The only character the plays have in common is James Tyrone, Jr., who was modeled after O'Neill's older brother James, a small-time actor who, after a short life of boozing and wenching, died in his forties in a sanitarium, unvisited by Eugene. A true poet of earthbound lyricism, O'Neill makes his lengthy, often-humorous diatribes fascinating throughout his autobiographical soul-searching and takes his sweet time teasing out his stories and his characters' traits. Written in 1943 and originally staged in 1947, A Moon for the Misbegotten never made it to Broadway in O'Neill's lifetime. Still, Moon may mark the first play of contemporary American theater- not for having a fluid, modernist approach to time and character, but for just the opposite, as O'Neill's people and their emotions seem as solid as the boulders of the Hogan's farm. A Moon for the Misbegotten has come to be recognized as one of O'Neill's greatest theatrical achievements - a unique blend of comedy, tragedy, autobiography, and imagination.

Director Pat Ansuini has been working in theatre and opera for approximately25 years as a stage manager, director and teacher. She has stage managed and directed at many theatres in Michigan and in the Midwest and Southwest. Her direction for such plays as Spunk, Antigone, Sand Mountain, The Stillborn Lover, Dancing at Lughnasa, Uncommon Women and Others and The Laramie Project has been cited for excellence by critics. A Moon for the Misbegotten marks her Wayne State University directing debut.

The cast includes Joe Colosi (Warren) as Phil Hogan, Darrell Glasgow (Sterling Heights) as James Tyrone, Jr., Joe Kvoriak (Eastpointe) as Mike Hogan, Tony Primeau (Southgate) as T. Stedman Harder and Lenora Whitecotton (Brownstown) as Josie Hogan. A Moon for the Misbegotten will be performed at the Bonstelle Theatre January 24-26 and January 31 - February 2. Performances are scheduled Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday afternoons at 2:00p.m. Tickets are $10 general admission, or $8 for students, senior citizens and WSU faculty, staff and Alumni Association members. For tickets and further information, please call the Wayne State University Theatre Box Office at (313) 577-2960.