A Short Night’s Journey

The Buntport Theater Company has taken on plenty of literary figures and playwrights over the years, from Shakespeare to Kafka, cross-pollinating the work of the greats with their own quirky brand. The latest is Eugene O’Neill, whom we meet in the hospital, recovering from an appendectomy and formulating the plot of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, in The World Is Mine. But there’s a little more method to the madness this time: “The shtick of it is that Paragon Theatre Company, in their new space across town, is doing a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and we decided to write a piece to complement that,” says Buntport’s Brian Colonna.

The resulting offbeat dramedy is, of course, anything but a mirror image of its inspiration. “It mostly takes place entirely in O’Neill’s head,” Colonna explains. “The tone can be silly, but there’s also an underlying tragic sense about it, especially the whole question about writing the tragedy in your own life into a play, and what is the cost of that?” Through it all, he adds, they’ve honestly tried to offer an authentic, resounding portrait of the playwright.

The World Is Mine opens tonight at 8 p.m. and continues Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and selected Sundays through March 6 at Buntport, 717 Lipan Street; to reserve tickets, $13 to $16, visit www.buntport.com or call 720-946-1388.

Also on the horizon, a free Eugene O’Neill panel discussion with members of both Buntport and Paragon will be hosted by the Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life program on February 22; get info at http://denverlibrary.org/fresh.

Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sun., Feb. 21, 3 p.m.; Sun., Feb. 28, 3 p.m. Starts: Jan. 29. Continues through March 6, 2010