Had the pleasure of playing Uncle Sid in Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! for American Bard Theater Company this week at one of the studios at Playwrights Horizons.  Some people like Long Day’s Journey Into Night or A Moon for the Misbegotten more but I think this was his finest play.

I used to do one of Richard’s monologues back when I was a freshman in college and got to see it performed when I worked one summer at the Monomoy Theatre in scenic Cape Cod. While this play is quite delightful, there is a subversive quality to the nostalgia.

Because the cast of this play is so big, it is rare that it gets performed. One of the great things about this staged reading was Daria DeGaetano’s exceptional reading of the stage directions. O’Neill gives certain insights with them and I think something is missed without them. This was a really great cast. Not included in the picture below were Michael Birch, Holleye Gilbert, Lincoln Hayes, and Helen Herbert. It was directed quite impeccably by Aimee Todoroff.

Special doff of the cap to Michael Heitzler, Jack Herholdt, and the rest of American Bard. It was a really fun evening!

With some of the cast: Lisa Barnes, Rachel Cora Wood, Glenn Provost, Steven Hauck, Deven Anderson, and Cheri Wicks.