THE HANGOVER REPORT – Forest Whitaker audaciously gives a low-key performance in the Broadway revival of O’Neill’s HUGHIE

hughieLast night, a rare revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie opened at the Booth Theater in a pungent, haunted production starring a low-key Forest Whitaker and directed by Michael Grandage. At only an hour, Hughie may seem like only a speck in comparison to such sprawling, titanic O’Neill masterworks as Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (which Roundabout Theatre Company is reviving in the spring). However, despite its brevity, Hughie, about a small time hustler (Erie, here played by Mr. Whitaker) who recounts his relationship with his recently deceased friend – if that – Hughie, is a play of surprising depth, mystery, and aching melancholy.

Mr. Grandage’s spectral production is fascinating. Mr. Whitaker is daringly giving a measured, almost timid performance as Erie which some may find frustrating in its diminutiveness. His Erie is a fuddling, albeit amiable, man who’s aware of his own smallness and insignificance. For him, conjuring the ghost of Hughie is an act of final desperation – without this memory to hold on to, it’s likely that he himself will disappear without a trace. This is an interesting counterpoint to Brian Dennehy’s more confident, likable, and ultimately less urgent portrayal of Erie, which I saw both at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the Stratford Festival in Ontario (both productions were helmed by the fearless Robert Falls, who chose a more naturalistic approach than Mr. Grandage’s expressionistic revival). As his foil (the play is essentially a monologue for Erie), Frank Wood is pitch-perfect. It’s credit to his immense skill as an actor that Mr. Wood’s night clerk feels like a feature of Christopher Oram’s ominous and foreboding hotel lobby set, which is itself a menacing third character in Mr. Grandage’s vision of the play. The intensely atmospheric lighting, which thankfully doesn’t shy away from swaths of darkness, is by Neil Austin.

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HUGHIE
Broadway, Play
Booth Theatre
1 hour, 5 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 12

Categories: Broadway, Theater

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