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Hughie - Top-Notch Performances Allow for Identification
Categories: UncategorizedErie Smith is crass, deceptive, egotistic and totally loathsome until you realize you’re looking in a mirror and seeing a reflection of yourself. That recognition is the result of a combination of great writing and great acting in Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie running at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre.
After the death of his friend Hughie, Erie (Brian Dennehy), a smalltime gambler, comes off a drinking binge and meets the man (Joe Grifasi) who's replaced Hughie as the night clerk at the hotel which Erie had called an occasional home. Launching into a number of jovial stories, Erie implies that he did Hughie a huge favor by showing some good times and friendship to a quiet guy saddled with a boring job and wife. It becomes apparent, however, that it was Hughie who did the favor by extending a few acts of kindness to a lonely man.
Dennehy shines as he plays the self-deluded Erie bigger than life and with the precision we’ve come to expect from the veteran O’Neill character actor: there’s a convincing smoker’s cough; drink-numbed fingers drop a sheet of paper. Dennehy skillfully portrays Erie’s mockery, his penchant for embellished storytelling and his obnoxious laugh which is the foundation for a carefully constructed personality that doubles as a façade for the world on one side and as a mask for his own loneliness and insecurity on the other.
Grifasi is a perfect foil as the clerk, a man of few words who is as unpretentious as Erie is boisterous. Grifasi, standing behind the counter and silent during Dennehy’s numerous powerhouse monologues, elicits huge laughs with a grunt, a small laugh or even silence. When he finally does respond, the self-absorbed Erie doesn’t notice.
Long Wharf’s production features a set designed by Eugene Lee specifically for the Stage II space. Lee meticulously recreates a 1928 midtown Manhattan hotel lobby, right down to the wanted posters hung on water-stained walls and a mousetrap in the corner. The fourth wall is eliminated and the audience feels like Erie’s stories are for their benefit as much as for the clerk’s. Lee’s stage evokes period painter Edward Hopper's wide compositions with dramatic use of light and dark (complimented by John Culbert’s lighting design) and characterized by isolation and loneliness. The wide set gives Dennehy room to roam and Falls a chance to block moments of proximity between Erie and the fixed-behind-the-counter Grifasi or to enhance Erie’s isolation by distancing them.
The production is so well done, that it’s hard to believe you’ve learned so much about Hughie – and yourself and the masks we show to others—in just a 50-minute one-act.
---- Lauren Yarger
Hughie plays at Long Wharf Theatre (222 Sargent Drive, New Haven, CT) through Nov. 16. Performance times are Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm; Sundays at 2pmand 7pm; Tuesdays at 7pm; Wednesdays at 2pm and 7pm; and Thursdays at 8pm.Tickets are $22 to $62 and are available by calling 203-787-4282 or online at www.longwharf.org.
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