If you’re the sort of theatergoer who prefers simplicity and suggestiveness to expensive costumes and scenery, you’ll probably enjoy The Heritage-O’Neill Theatre Company production of “Anna Christie,” Eugene O’Neill’s famous tribute to the sea and seafarers.
If you go
“Anna Christie”
Where: The Heritage-O’Neill Theatre Company, 8011 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday; through June 5
Info: $18 to $30; 301-770-9080; theheritagetheatre.org
The play opens in a saloon in New York City, where an aging coal barge operator, Chris Christopherson (Craig Miller), is drinking heavily with his girlfriend, Marthy Owen (Emily Morrison). When Christopherson gets a letter from his grown daughter, Anna Christie (Amy Rauch), whom he hasn’t seen since she was a baby, he decides that he must clean up his act, clear Marthy off the boat where they live, and appear to be a good father. The first few scenes are classic O’Neill, immediately establishing not just the characters but their personalities and dreams as well. Morrison is excellent as the lively Marthy Owen, portraying her as a sympathetic person who understands Christopherson’s desire to make a good impression on his daughter. Morrison is so delightful in the role that when she leaves early in Act 1, it’s easy to wish O’Neill had decided to bring Marthy back later in the play.
Miller is good as the Swedish sailor, given to drink and dishonesty, a man who is both attracted to and afraid of the “old devil sea.” When Anna arrives, her father goes out of his way to be solicitous and loving. After an initial hard-edged discussion in which Anna accuses her father of abandoning her on a farm in the Midwest after her mother died, the two retire to Christopherson’s quarters, with Anna petulant and angry that she will have to live on a filthy boat.
Act 2 is set 10 days later in the barge at anchor in the outer harbor of Provincetown, Mass. Karey Faulkner’s simple set representing the vessel is no more than two benches and a life preserver, made romantic by Sound Designer Benjamin Fan’s lulling sounds of the sea, but the environment has changed Anna. “It’s like I’ve come home,” she says, “… like I’ve found something that I’ve missed.” And as she relaxes, her relationship with her father flourishes.
But not for long. During a storm at sea, Chris saves a sailor, Mat Burke (Sean Coe), who takes a liking to Anna. Jealousy flares between the two men and Chris insists that Anna cannot spend time with Burke. Coe is powerful as the charming Irishman, whose flattery is as thick as his buttery brogue. He even makes his improbable love-at-first-sight believable. Burke is O’Neill’s symbol of eternal and uncorrupted youth standing up to old age and Coe transforms that symbolism into a credible human being.
Anna is one of O’Neill’s most complex, fascinating characters. She is flinty, frosty and rough on the surface but underneath are great depths of feeling and sensitivity. In this production, Rauch is best at standing up for her rights before her father and her boyfriend, but she could go further to inhabit the subtleties O’Neill packed into her character, as it is those contradictions that attract Burke.
“Anna Christie” is laced with tension, subliminal and overt anger. Directors Karey Faulkner and Sean Coe nicely play up those elements, offering proof of O’Neill’s extraordinary ability to explore a vast range of emotions within a tiny frame, using a small collision of characters to illuminate resentment, fear, trust, loneliness, love, self-loathing and hope.
