In some ways this long, difficult O’Neill play was easier to design than Pack of Lies in this space. The poetic language of Moon for the Misbegotten allows for greater suspension of disbelief. The director and dramaturg whittled the script down to under three hours playing time, and the director and I whittled the space requirements down to a single scene. O’Neill’s biographical play takes place in rural Connecticut, and the beauty of that landscape is the sky and the stone fences that run along property lines. I took liberties in recreating the sky by creating scrim-faced lightboxes that acted as either simple canvases for color or slices of Connecticut horizon.

Moon for the Misbegotten, Eugene O'Neill • Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Director; Jonathan Epstein, Lighting Designer; James Fulton, Costume Designer: Jane Stein