The Eugene O’Neill play “Hughie” is often performed like a virtual one-man show with a star dominating the action as the desperately lonely Erie Smith who is killing time in the lobby of a fleabag hotel in New York City nearly a century ago.
Erie spins stories to a new nightclerk who remains silent most of the time.
Erie’s best years are behind him and the death of the previous hotel desk clerk, Hughie, leaves him without one of the few pals he has left who is willing to listen to Erie’s tales of Manhattan high life.
12 years ago, Al Pacino did the play at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre and then on Broadway with the estimable actor Paul Benedict, but due to the way the piece was staged your eyes rarely left the star.
What is so fantastic about the current production of “Hughie,” running through Sunday at Long Wharf, is that director Robert Falls and star Brian Dennehy have made the play into a real two-character piece by moving the clerk’s desk to a center stage position and by calling on the great character actor Joe Grifasi to work his magic on a role with very few lines of dialogue.
For Grifasi, the show has been a chance to return to his career roots, He was part of the 1970s halcyon era at the Yale School of Drama that included fellow students Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Christopher Durang and others.
Since his Yale days, Grifasi has worked on more stage, TV and movie projects than most of us can count — ranging from “Splash” (1984) to “Moonstruck” (1987) to “13 Going on 30” (2004).
Grifasi and Dennehy have a long working history together in the theater and in film. One of my favorite pairings of the two actors was in the wonderful New York-set 1986 thriller, “F/X.”
I talked with Grifasi a few days after “Hughie” opened and he said lots of people have mentioned the way Falls has emphasized the desk clerk’s reactions to Erie’s boozy monologue.
The teamwork between Dennehy and Grifasi occasionally suggests a black comedy variation of Laurel & Hardy.
The 64-year-old Buffalo native said Dennehy has kept the production sharp and fresh in the multiple productions of “Hughie” that they have done together.
“It changes every day. We keep tuning it up so that it’s a little bit different,” he said.
Dennehy asked for Grifasi to play the role and pushed for having the hotel desk front and center rather than its position off to the side in most other productions.
“I think it’s generally played on a deeper stage but I don’t know the other productions. I hope the relationship comes through,” Grifasi said of the connection that slowly forms between O’Neill’s two strangers.
Although “Hughie” is not a comedy per se, there are many dark Irish laughs in Erie’s monologue and in the night clerk’s reactions to what he is hearing. Grifasi said there is a lot of room for day-to-day differences in the way his character relates to the talkative night owl.
“Some days I play the role more passively. I do think about who he is. Working in service, wanting to go back to what he originally wanted to do. I think his attention ebbs and flows,” Grifasi said.
“Brian really throws the focus toward some of the comic possibilities but he varies them day to day,” he added.
The actor loves the tightness of the play — which runs around an hour.
“A lot of plays have a brilliant first act and then come to ruin,” Grifasi said, with a mordant chuckle.
“There have been a lot of playwrights in this town who have labored mightily over second acts for the past 75 years,” the actor added in reference to New Haven’s glory days as a try-out town for shows headed into New York.
Grifasi is a director, too, and will be staging a workshop of a new play by Lewis Black in the city next month.
There is also talk that “Hughie” might be produced on Broadway early next year.
Meanwhile, you do not want to miss this chance to see two of the best American actors playing off each other at Long Wharf.
Some tickets are still available for the last three days of the run and can be ordered by calling 203-787-4282 or online at www.longwharf.org
