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Beate Hein Bennett
"Fog and Ice," Feb. 12 – Feb. 28, 2026 The sea plays, “Ile” and “Fog”, dating from about 1912/14 by Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) are rarely performed theatrical gems, so it is especially gratifying to see them together with Esther E. Galbraith’s “Brink of Silence“ in an excellent production at Theatre 2, a small intimate space. While the three plays take place on vast frozen oceans, the plays themselves delve into the intimate interior of human beings. O’Neill’s sea plays were originally performed by the legendary group, the Provincetown Players in an actual Wharf building where the doors towards the ocean could be opened, so the audience was able to experience these plays with the actual ocean in the background. The Wharf was the first Provincetown Playhouse before it opened its winter quarters on McDougal Street in Greenwich Village.
The icy seascapes become metaphors for the human condition in extremis, not only in terms of survival in harsh physical conditions but more importantly for the individual psychological and moral struggles in the search for fundamental values in a given social context. Eugene O’Neill knew life at sea intimately—in his youth he worked as a seaman on commercial ships. He probably also knew about the New England whaling industry of the 19th century, the brutality of the work and its demise with the discovery of petroleum. “Ile” [local pronunciation of ‘oil’] has clear echoes of “Moby Dick.” However, O’Neill adds another dimension by bringing the wife of the captain, an Ahab like figure, on board. Through the extreme situation of being ice-bound for months in the North Atlantic, running short in supplies, dealing with a near mutinous crew whose contract of two years at sea is up, the Captain is now faced with a crucial moral decision that will determine not only his own future but also the future of those he is responsible for, that of his crew and of his wife Ann. His decision is rooted in a tragic dilemma.
O’Neill’s second play, “Fog” is set in even more extreme conditions: two men in a life-boat are lost in a thick pre-dawn fog hoping for rescue—the other possible survivor, a Polish woman with a dead child, cannot be seen as she is bundled in blankets on the bottom of the boat. Their dialogue and their behavior reveal not only their different social status but, more importantly, the significant difference in their moral and ethical values and the socioeconomic source of these values. The third play, “Brink of Silence” by Esther E. Galbraith explores the human soul in the setting of a windowless cabin on an icy Antarctic island. Two explorers of the Antarctic, Cole and MacReady have been sharing the cabin for two years while awaiting relief to be brought back to ‘civilization.’ The dialogue reveals that Cole has been the inhabitant of this cabin for ten years since his own unsuccessful expedition which he led under his real name Sir Gilbert Darnton. He was declared missing and was presumed dead. Cole/Darnton had left a wife and a sixteen year old son to pursue his dream expedition of crossing the Antarctic. He knows that his wife had remarried. He has made the deliberate decision not to return to ‘civilization’ and disturb the new order at home, but to make his home in his windowless cabin on an island in the icy Antarctica. Bit by bit the two men reveal and share their notions of what motivates human behavior as individuals and as responsible social ‘animals.’
The director Jerry Heymann has been able to bring these plays to exquisite life with an excellent crew and team of designers and actors. Scenic designer Brian Dudkiewicz brought the atmosphere of ice and fog with an angled blue backdrop superimposed on a larger white backdrop. It made me think of the open ocean behind the Provincetown Wharf but its minimalist aesthetic evoke the Japanese Hokusai and Hiroshige seascapes and solitude of the New England painter Winslow Homer’s sea paintings. In “Fog” Lighting designer Max Stroeher paints on the blue backdrop the gradual daybreak enveloping the characters first in almost complete darkness. Sound designer Andy Evan Cohen creates the auditory background of crushing ice, fog horns, and mutinous men, to great effect. Costume Designer Julia Squier’s dark grey prim costume for Ann Keeney evokes the 19th century; the seamen of different ranks in “Ile” are outfitted for their maritime environment. Five actors take different roles in the three plays: In “Ile” Charlotte Cohn plays Mrs. Keeney, a tall slender woman, with modesty and elegance whose composure gradually unravels as she pleads with her husband to return home until, in despair, she descends into furious madness . Ms. Cohn embodies that emotional trajectory with superb vocal and physical control. She is an excellent foil to her husband, Captain Keeney played by John Long. A towering presence, he shows all the behavioral colors of an unbending if not tyrannical Captain who will not shy from violence when imposing his will on a crew. As a husband he is at a loss as he watches his wife descend into madness. Simon Feil is the Second Mate, Captain Keeney’s right-hand man who tries to mediate between the Captain and the mutinous crew by appealing to his reason. In the play“Fog” Simon Feil plays the empathetic ‘poor’ Poet against Steven Rattazzi’s well-off ‘realistic’ but frightened Businessman—both are on the last life-boat (without oars) from the crashed ocean steamer Starland. The actors play the contrasting characters with superb vocal and physical differentiation and sense of timing. In “Brink of Silence” Simon Feil plays MacReady, a fellow Antarctic explorer who has been sharing the windowless cabin with Cole, played by John Long. In conversation with Cole, he uncovers the real life behind the mysterious Cole, a.k.a. Sir Gilbert Darnton. He plays the ‘realistic’ foil to metaphysical Cole. Mr. Rattazzi plays Johnson, another explorer who is brought by a young Darnton to the cabin half frozen . Jesse Castellanos plays multiple roles, but in “The Brink of Silence” he arrives as the young Darnton, the first to cross the Antarctic successfully, and who is proud to have finished his father’s quest. I will keep the final surprise as a surprise. The three plays give contemporary audiences much to ponder, and to enjoy! |
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