So two good-natured women are leaving the Germinal Stage-Denver following Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie,” clearly searching for a little levity following one of the angrier efforts by Denver’s fiercely avant-garde, old-guard theater.
“Well, at least we don’t have to ask what that one was about,” one said with a laugh.
Nope, there’s little mistaking what O’Neill’s brutally harsh 1921 story is about: Two sailors — an AWOL father and a possessive suitor — try not so much to win, but claim, one seriously choleric young woman.
The vituperativeness flows more freely than the booze in this Pulitzer-winning play to the point where, really, you just kind of have to chuckle at it.
Anna (Alana Opie) is the grown daughter of gruff career sailor Chris Christopherson (Tim Fishbaugh). He took off from Sweden when the girl was 5. When her mother died, Anna was sent to a family farm in Minneapolis, where cousins worked her like a dog — in the fields and in the bedroom. After escaping into an even harsher adulthood, Anna has now tracked down the father she hasn’t seen in 25 years, seeking little more from him than shelter on his coal barge.
The wicked sea, which has taken nearly everything from this drunken old man, gives back to Anna in the form of Mat Burke, an adrift sailor who comes aboard. And within about 10 minutes, this sanctimonious brute fixes on marrying Anna.
Let the secrets and sexism, the entitlement and indignation, the judgments and the suffocating patriarchal subjugation begin!
O’Neill was a pioneering realist who dragged the dregs of society out from the fringe and onto the stage — while doing nothing to make them any more palatable for audiences.
What makes Ed Baierlein’s unsentimental production tolerable, even a bit melancholy, is the hard-boiled humanity that’s not so deeply buried within all three main characters. While the arrogance and hypocrisy of these two misguided fools only grows more infuriating, there are shreds of kindness in each. Chris welcomes his second chance with his daughter. There is hope here, but it’s wasted on a woman who has been spit out and left incapable of loving any man — largely because of her father’s lifelong inattention.
Baierlein’s production, which was reviewed on its final preview performance, overcomes some seriously shaky initial acting before reaching solid ground (on the sea) in the verbally torrential third act. Germinal veteran Stephen R. Kramer capably anchors things with his infuriatingly believable portrayal of Mat, while newcomer Opie has the much bigger challenge channeling her inner Greta Garbo (star of the 1930 film).
The mumbling drunken accents often swallow chunks of O’Neill’s text, though, and Anna at times sounds more English than Swedish. But she is undeniably sympathetic in the role.
Thankfully, Baierlein has pared O’Neill’s story from 10 characters to a more focused six. But what his postage stamp of a set affords audiences in confrontational intimacy, it takes away by constricting his actors from ever reaching full, wild pathos.
With “Anna Christie,” O’Neill seems an even more obvious precursor to the meanness of David Mamet and the harshness of Martin McDonagh. His play is a testament to the hard life of sailors, immigrants and, most especially, women whose heads men might crack like eggs — and then blame God for their rotten luck.
In the end, Ibsen had Nora Helmer walk out the door, and had Hedda Gabler shoot herself. O’Neill? Well, if you don’t know, he has Anna make perhaps the most surprising — and tragic — decision of them all.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Anna Christie” **1/2 (out of four stars)
Bad blood. Germinal Stage-Denver, 2450 W. 44th Ave. Written by Eugene O’Neill. Directed by Ed Baierlein. Through Dec. 13. 2 hours, 10 minutes including two intermissions. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. $17.75-$21.75. 303-455-7108 or
