A Moon for the Misbegotten

A Moon for the Misbegotten is a play by Eugene O'Neill. The play is a sequel to O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, with the Jim Tyrone character as an older version of Jamie Tyrone. The play premiered on Broadway in 1957 and has had four Broadway revivals, plus a West End engagement.

Set in a dilapidated Connecticut house in early September 1923, the play focuses on three characters: Josie, a domineering Irish woman with a quick tongue and a ruined reputation, her conniving father, tenant farmer Phil Hogan, and James Tyrone, Jr., Hogan's landlord and drinking companion, a cynical alcoholic haunted by the death of his mother.

The play begins with Mike, the last of Hogan's three sons, leaving the farm. As a joke during one of their drunken bouts, Tyrone threatens to sell his land to his hated neighbor, T. Steadman Harder, and evict Hogan. Hogan creates a scheme in which Josie will get Tyrone drunk, seduce him, and blackmail him. Josie and Tyrone court in the moonlight.

The scheme falls through when Josie finds out that Tyrone isn't going to sell the land to Harder after all. Tyrone tells Josie the story of how, after his mother died, he traveled back East on the train, and hired a blonde prostitute for $50 a night to overcome his grief.

Tyrone leaves for New York to handle his mother's estate, apparently to die soon of complications from alcoholism.

As in Journey, the Tyrone character is based on Eugene O'Neill's older brother, Jamie O'Neill.

A Moon for the Misbegotten was produced by the Theatre Guild, which had produced many of O'Neill's, plays including Strange Interlude in 1928,The Iceman Cometh in 1946, and this play, the last. Because O'Neill was "unhappy with progress in rehearsals, ... [he] demanded out-of-town tryouts in a series of Midwestern cities." The play had its world premiere at the Hartman Theatre in Columbus, Ohio in 1947.

The play has been produced five times on Broadway. The original production opened on May 2, 1957 at the now-demolished Bijou Theatre, where it ran for 68 performances. Directed by Carmen Capalbo, the cast included Cyril Cusack, Franchot Tone, and Wendy Hiller. Scenic design was by William Pitkin, Lighting Design by Lee Watson, and Costume Design by Ruth Morley. Wendy Hiller was nominated for the Tony Award, Actress in a Play.

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