STAGE REVIEWS : ‘HAUNTED’ SHEDS LITTLE LIGHT ON O’NEILL GENIUS

“The Haunted One” at Orange Coast College is not so much a biography of Eugene O’Neill as an often unwieldy pastiche of the trailblazing American playwright’s work.

OCC instructor John Ferzacca engineered this homage, having pored through the dramatist’s several award-winning plays (three Pulitzer Prizes and the 1936 Nobel Prize) and personal writings in an attempt to, as the program notes, “explain who he was and why.” Ferzacca’s aim is ambitious: The man credited with setting the course of realism in the American theater has puzzled biographers and historians for generations, and finding the source of his talent has proved as elusive as understanding the depths of his alcoholism and the depressions that chained him throughout life. Unfortunately, Ferzacca’s loose compilation, although serious-minded and reverential, does little to illuminate O’Neill beyond what is already on the record.

Ferzacca wisely depends on O’Neill’s own words throughout, avoiding the temptation to write his own opinions into the work; even the narratives linking passages from the various plays have been gleaned from the playwright’s introspective autobiographical sketches.

We learn that O’Neill loved bars, the sea and the common man, had an unusual family life (Ferzacca tells us that his father was a famous and handsome actor, but nothing about O’Neill’s marriages) and was a moralist whose recurring themes were sin and redemption.

We are also served rich samplings of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” “A Moon for the Misbegotten” and “The Iceman Cometh,” among other dramas. Ferzacca’s scholarly knowledge of O’Neill’s plays is impressive, and he’s made some good choices. But the structure presents problems. The segues rarely explain the upcoming passages adequately, and the passages themselves are often confusing when presented alone. Those familiar with O’Neill’s work will probably be able to put it all in context, but others may find themselves in a fog of beautiful but perplexing words.

The portrayal of O’Neill himself, by David Shuster, is also bewildering. O’Neill was a decidedly angst-ridden artist whose genius, by most accounts, was vast, dark and angry. Here, he comes across as an amiable, poetic sweetheart. Shuster’s highly mannered performance fails to fully communicate the primal conflicts and turbulent personality that characterized O’Neill and his writing.

The rest of the cast (Kim Burnes, Tracy Cannon, Teri Ciranna, David Dalton, Alex Golson and Jon Sidoli) faces the daunting challenge of bringing O’Neill’s most memorable characters to life, a task that has troubled even the best actors.

“The Haunted One” continues through Saturday at the OCC Drama Lab, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. For information, call (714) 432-5880.