Transport Group’s radical revival reunites David Greenspan, dramaturg Kristina Corcoran Williams, and director Jack Cummings III in an almost preposterous feat, as these three artists conceive Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning nine act, six-hour play Strange Interlude into a solo performance.

Nina Leeds’ life crumbles when her true love is killed in World War I. Flitting from one man to the next until she settles for a life she never wanted, stalked by the fantasy of the happiness she never shared with her late fiance. This saga from 1928 follows the lives of eight characters over the course of a half century. Transport Group’s production will incorporate the fragmented identities of each of these characters, and their colliding inner and outer lives over an entire lifetime, into a single performer, and turn one of O’Neill’s most ambitious works into an astounding theatrical event.

Who needs eight actors when one can do it brilliantly? If the actor in question is David Greenspan, then I bet you already know the answer. David Greenspan is revelatory in his six-hour one-man show Strange Interlude, by Eugene O’Neill. An interlude by definition is “a brief span of time,” but it should be redefined from now on as a “Greenspan of time.” The time flew, I wanted more. It’s addictive. At times, reviewing a play is an honor because of the level of artistry involved in the production. This is one of those times. Greenspan is so far ahead of us, I honestly don’t think we can fully appreciate him. But let’s try, shall we? We’re guinea pigs, you see, part of a thrilling experiment in stamina and melodrama. We’re running around in our little maze (I’ll get to that later) being fed O’Neill at a dizzying pace. With breathtaking simplicity Greenspan enacts the story of Nina Leeds, a woman who at the play’s opening has lost her lover Gordon in the war. Nina’s father told Gordon not to marry Nina, and because of this interference, Gordon’s death haunts her. So begins Nina’s strange interlude with three men whom she loves: her friend Charlie Marsden, a writer; her lover Ned Darre …Read more