It sounded like a great idea at the time: Paragon Theatre would stage Eugene O’Neill’s classic ode to family dysfunction, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” at the same time those wunderkinds from Buntport Theater would create their own imagined account of how O’Neill might have gone about creating his masterwork.
A theatrical exploration into the mind of the Irish-American master? With the likes of Kafka, Shakespeare and Melville already in their dust, that’s just the kind of fare Buntport eats for breakfast.
Till they got a good look inside that sotted, rotten mind.
Put nicely: “When we started researching him, it started to become hard to find redeeming qualities in his personal life,” said Buntport ensemble member Erin Rollman.
Put less nicely: “When we started researching him, we were like — What an (expletive),” she laughed. “Who wants to do an entire play about such an (expletive)?”
But at Buntport, they’re always game for a challenge.
“We thought, ‘Well, we can make a play about anything — because we’re kind of (expletives) ourselves,’ ” she said.
Not really.
Tonight, Buntport opens “The World Is Mine,” their fanciful look into a guy who, let’s just say, wasn’t exaggerating when he turned all that alcoholism and family bickering into a play now regarded as among the greats.
Buntport sets “The World Is Mine” in a 1930s hospital where O’Neill is recovering from an appendectomy and struggling to muster the inspiration to write “Journey.”
In true Buntport style — meaning fact freely mingles with fantasy — we are soon made privy to all sorts of odd things rattling about in O’Neill’s brain, including a wife who is likewise admitted to the hospital (for “nerves”) and a nurse who reminds him of an estranged daughter.
“He’s struggling with the notion that, maybe, easier than writing this particular play is to just kill himself,” Rollman said.
Because Buntport writes all of its own plays, it would never just stage O’Neill’s work, or anyone else’s. Paragon, on the other hand, is known — if not exclusively, then certainly significantly — for presenting classics like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “The Glass Menagerie” and, most recently, “Bus Stop.”
With “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” Paragon christens its new home, a 100-seat transformational theater in a former furniture showroom it shares with Kim Robards Dance at 1385 S. Santa Fe Drive.
“It’s our kind of show in that it’s people stuck in a room,” said executive director Warren Sherrill. “It’s all about language and confrontation and no spectacle — and that’s the kind of show we like.”
Buntport, on the other hand, likes to present “Hamlet” with a goldfish playing Ophelia. On Tuesday, it was awarded a commission to develop an original multimedia piece for the Denver Center Theatre Company.
“We both respect each other as two very different theater companies in Denver,” said Paragon’s Sherrill, “but our audiences aren’t really seeing each other’s works.”
Until now. A combined O’Neill project, they agreed, is a good way to cross-pollinate.
The collaboration is more organizational than artistic. Subscribers to either company’s season get free tickets to the other show. Those who buy single tickets to one earn discounted tickets to the other by simply showing their program at the second show.
And while the two companies are taking hugely different approaches, both agree to the importance O’Neill has in the theater canon.
Even if he was kind of a jerk.
O’Neill introduced realism to the American theater and was known, much as August Wilson came to be decades later, for putting the most marginalized of people on the stage. Even if they can be hard to watch.
“I don’t think you can get any more incredibly raw with characters on stage than O’Neill, and to us, that’s true theater,” said Sherrill. “People are going to walk out of this play and talk about it for days, whether they liked it or not.”
For Rollman, the fun has been finding redeeming qualities within O’Neill’s world.
“I hope that you like all of our characters, even though they are all sort of horrible,” she said. “I think that’s how you are meant to feel with ‘Long Day’s Journey,’ as well. You watch these people struggle and they are so miserable to each other, but they also really love each other, for better or worse.”
Though O’Neill died in 1953, most of his plays are based on relationships we all can still identify with, Sherrill said.
“We are all fighting those monsters inside of us, no matter how secure we want to call ourselves. And we always will.”
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
Buntport’s “The World is Mine”
Original play. Presented by Buntport Theater, 717 Lipan St. Written, directed and performed by ensemble. Through March 6. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Feb. 21 and 28. $13-$16. 720-946-1388 or .
Paragon’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night”
Drama. 1385 S. Santa Fe Drive. Written by Eugene O’Neill. Directed by Jarrad Holbrook. Feb. 13-March 13. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. 303-300-2210 or
O’Neill panel discussion
“Born Broken: The Life and Works of Eugene O’Neill.” 6:30-8 p.m. Feb. 22 in the B2 conference room at the Denver Public Library, 10 W. 14th Ave.
This weekend’s best bet
“Autism Chronicles” is a live theater performance created and directed by Norma Moore that weaves stories from literature written about families living with autism. It will be presented at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31, in the Gates Concert Hall at the University of Denver, as a benefit for the Autism Society of Colorado. Performers include Ian Merrill Peakes, currently starring in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s “When Tang Met Laika,” along with Jonathan Nichols, Tamlyn Tomita and Josh Robinson. $25 and $100. 720-214-0794, ext. 19.
This weekend’s theater openings
“Aida” Elton John and Tim Rice’s contemporary musical adaptation of the timeless love between an enslaved Nubian princess and an Egyptian soldier. Through April 3. Jester’s Dinner Theatre, 224 Main St., Longmont, 303-682-9980 or
“Conviction” In Madrid, an Israeli scholar is detained for stealing a confidential file on the Spanish Inquisition. Contained within: the true story of a Spanish priest who fell in love with a Jewish woman. This Denver-born production precedes an upcoming off-Broadway staging in New York. Through Feb. 7. Presented by Theatre O at 5311 Western Ave., Boulder, 720-323-4665 or
“I Do! I Do!” Follow Michael and Agnes from their wedding day and 50 years beyond. Sundays only through March 7. Union Colony Dinner Theatre, 802 Ninth Ave., Greeley, 970-352-2900 or
“Molly Brown and the Mysterious Murder” Mystery dinner theater set at the Denver Democratic National Convention of 1908. Appropriate for all ages. Through Feb. 27. Adams Mystery Playhouse, 2406 Federal Blvd., 303-455-1848 or
“The Moving of Lilla Barton” When Lilla Barton, wife of the pastor at an Episcopal church in Alabama, is widowed, she refuses to leave the rectory. Now there’s no place for the new pastor and his family to live. Through March 7. Bas Bleu Theatre, 401 Pine St., Fort Collins, 970-498-8949 or
“The Spoon River Anthology” A musical exploration of Edgar Lee Masters’ book depicting the life of a small town and its many characters. Through Feb. 13. Longmont Theatre Company, 513 Main St., Longmont, 303-772-5200 or
“That Was Loud, This is Now” This is a return run of the latest installment in the Heritage Square Music Hall’s long-running, silly pop-music revues. Through Feb. 21. Heritage Square Music Hall, 18301 W. Colfax Ave., Golden, 303-279-7800 or
“Twelve Angry Men” Reginald Rose’s 1955 courtroom drama about jury deliberations in the trial of 19-year-old man accused of the fatal stabbing of his father. Through Feb. 21. Presented by TheatreWorks at 3955 Cragwood Drive, Colorado Springs, 719-255-3232 or
“When Tang Met Laika” This world premiere explores what happened when Soviets and Americans joined together in the 1990s Cold War thaw to establish the International Space Station.. Through Feb. 27. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Space Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets, 303-893-4100 or and here’s
“The World is Mine” A look inside the mind of Eugene O’Neill, as presented by the Buntport Theater collective. Through March 6. 717 Lipan St. 720-946-1388 or and here’s
Complete theater listings
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