A Touch of the Poet

By Eugene O'Neill

Starring Daniel J. Travanti,

Dearbhla Molloy and Elizabeth Marvel

at the American Reperatory Theatre

through March 26

Eugene O'Neill's play A Touch of the Poet at the American Repertory Theatre attempts to knit together the conflicting American consciousnesses of respect for an old order and the self-emancipation of the new. These dichotomies are played out in the domestic sphere of Captain Con Melody's inn during the 1828 election between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

Melody (Daniel J. Travanti) is a displaced Irish gentleman drunk. Having fought with the Duke of Wellington in Spain at the Battle of Talavera, the anniversary of which he celebrates on the day of the play by dressing up in his old uniform and demanding a feast, Melody regards himself as being passed up by history.

He focuses his rage on his peasant wife, the devoted Nora (Dearbhla Molloy), whom he married out of either propriety or love--the audience is never certain--and whom he has resented ever after as the locus and symbol of his failure. Their feisty daughter Sara (Elizabeth Marvel) resents Melody for living in the past and clinging to a tradition that makes him a fool in America, swindled by the Yankees, abusive to Nora, and hated by his patrons for his outdated gentlemanly airs.

Travanti's portrayal of Melody asserting his privilege in a country where it no longer matters, and in a situation where he no longer has the money to make it true, is over the top to the extent that it becomes a caricature. The rapid flip-flopping of his moods between domestic violence and honorable gentility while dramatic, is affected and awkward.

This is, however, beautifully counterbalanced by the perceptive performances of Elizabeth Marvel and Dearbhla Molloy. Nora never falters in her love for Melody, or in her suffering for having left the Catholic Church to accommodate their early transgression which resulted in marriage. To the extent that Nora is the moral fulcrum of the play, Molloy creates a steady, understated and endearing character through lines which otherwise could be considered preachy. The real fireworks of the play, however, come from Marvel's portrayal of Sara, who is the audience's heroine and a metaphor for the future voice of America.

The 'Poet' that O'Neill refers to is the nebulous spirit which makes men dream and which the suffering women of the story are meant to understand and love unconditionally. The choice of poets supposedly echoes the American sentiments of the age, with Lord Byron representing Melody's Romantic longing for Old World ways, and Thoreau's Yankee desire for freedom from internal oppression assigned to Sara's lover Mr. Harford, a character we never see.

As neigher of these poets ever fully possesses the American consciousness, it is appropriate that the play does not choose one over the other but discards them both for a compromise in Sara. She is ambitious and free, much like Thoreau's envisioned Yankees, but ultimately she accepts the Romantic notions of love and order. Sara's state at the end of the play anticipates Jackson's victory and a shift to idealism combined with populism.

A Touch of the Poet was to be the first of an eleven-play sequence titled "A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed;" by the curtain call, the audience understands why and is grateful that O'Neill never completed the other ten. While the conflicts of the play, both domestic and ideological are expertly crafted by O'Neill, he never achieves the necessary element of making us care. Until the last scenes, there is no movement, no reason to watch. The question of whether Lord Byron or Thoreau win in the end is not enough to sustain a drama. By the time resolution is ours, we have little interest in it beyond the academic.

Assessing the quality of the ART's production is difficult when the script is so troubled Whether problems in pacing can be attributed to Joe Dowling's direction, or a refusal to cut lines, is unclear. Derek McLane's set, while visually impressive, crowds actors between two uninteresting tables and is a generally unwise use of space. In keeping with the standard of the script there is little that is striking or exceptional about this production.

At very best, A Touch of the Poet can be seen as an exploration of characters embodying arguments in American drama. Unfortunately, the production at the A.R.T accesses only the medium of extremely average drama.