Anna Christie, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, through May 6. 617-585-5678 or lyricstage.com
Nearly a century before #Me Too there was "Anna Christie." The 1922 Pulitzer Prize drama features a title heroine who announces to her father and boyfriend as they engage in a verbal tug of war over her that she is no piece of furniture.
Eugene O'Neill's somewhat melodramatically creaky play may need some tightening, but Anna's eventual self-empowerment as a woman clearly has the quality of a sturdy antique. Now premier Lyric Stage Company of Boston guest director Scott Edmiston (the company's visceral 2017 revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") has adapted the public domain work with the care of a master restorer.
The result is at once a moving pre-feminist statement and theater as inviting and lasting as a Chippendale armchair.
Would O'Neill approve of the tightened result? Actually, the dramatist himself substantially revised the play-initially entitled "Chris Christopherson" in 1919-before it opened on Broadway as "Anna Christie" in 1921 (with a 1993 Tony Award-winning revival starring the late Natasha Richardson).
O'Neill turned originally innocent but vulnerable New York City native Anna into a weary prostitute returning home after many years to see her father Chris. Coal barge captain Christopherson, who once had served as a bosom on many ships throughout the world, had sent her to the farm of Minnesota relatives after the death of her mother.
In the early back story, Anna reveals that she had worked like a dog there, had been raped by a cousin and had suffered at the hands of various uncaring johns.
Anna's transformation from a bitter, manipulated woman to one determined to define her own life and take it in a much more positive direction remains the essential arc of this still-timely play. Edmiston has honed this scenario in his adaptation in good part by trimming a cast of about a dozen characters to five.
The removal of saloon owner Johnny the Priest , longshoreman, storm rescuers and rescued shipmates-except of course the pivotal boyfriend-not only does not diminish dramatic scenes but also makes them more intimate. In fact, Karen Perlow's nuanced lighting and Dewey Dellay's evocative sound design give both the South Street Seaport saloon and the Simeon Winthrop, Christopherson's coal barge you-are-there immediacy and vividness.
Lanterns sway on the ship to help convey the force of the storm from which Mat is rescued. Designer Janie E. Howland's creatively configured wood boards make the move from the saloon to the barge not only smoothly accomplished but entirely convincing.
Most of all, under Edmiston's sensitive guidance, the first-rate cast guarantees clear sailing for this all-too-rare revival. Lindsey McWhorter captures Anna's early combination of resentment and reserve and richly develops her growing resolve to make a life change. Fans of Greta Garbo's arresting work in the 1930 pre-code film will find this very talented actress-an IRNE Award winner for her fine portrayal of a seamstress in Lyric Stage's recent staging of "Intimate Apparel"-equally alluring.
Johnny Lee Davenport has the right crustiness and inner emotional conflict as her previously distant father. O'Neill may have been influenced by Irish playwright John Millington Synge's poetry about fate (for example, in his "Riders to the Sea")-a theme that Davenport delivers with gusto in his concern for what he calls the "devil sea."
Dan Whelton-who caught the complexity of upstart Nick in the Lyric Stage "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"-persuasively moves from a transparently shallow Mat to a newly sensitized hunk that truly cares for Anna. Nancy E. Carroll finds Marthy Owen's attitude with boyfriend Chris and generosity of spirit counseling Anna about men. Gifted James R. Milord ("103 Within the Veil") brings heartiness and good camaraderie to bartender Larry's easy banter with Chris. Designer Charles Schoonmaker reflects Anna and Mat's respective character developments in their period attire.
If Chris terms the fog a "dirty trick," Anna sees it as a kind of metaphor for her redemption. By contrast, there should be no disagreement about Lyric Stage's "Anna Christie." Book passage without delay.