By Michele Markarian
‘Anna Christie’ – Written by Eugene O’Neill. Adapted and directed by Scott Edmiston. Presented by Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA, through May 6.
Eugene O’Neill won his second Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1922 for Anna Christie. Originally a four-act play with far more actors than Edmiston’s stripped down five, it must have been shocking and sordid in its day. Anna Christie is a story of a prostitute believing herself to be too far gone for redemption reuniting with her father, a frightened former boson convinced that the lure and lull of the sea is a curse for him and his family. “This is a very weird play,” I said to my husband as we left, but somehow, this excellent cast makes it all seem hazily credible. Weirder still – and I assure you this never happens – I dreamed I was conversing with some of the play’s characters the night I saw it. If that’s not a sign that a play hasn’t gotten under your skin, I don’t know what is. Scott Edmiston has an eye for mise en scene, which helps.
