Los Angeles Times

Stage Beat
By RAY LOYND

‘Two From the Sea’

Eugene O’Neill’s early sea plays throb with atmosphere, and the Celtic Arts Center evocatively catches the tough camaraderie in the one-acts “Bound East for Cardiff” and “The Long Voyage Home.”

Director Joe Praml draws excellent ensemble performances from his casts (particularly Tom Noga in both plays, Robert O’Carroll’s dying seaman Yank in “Cardiff,” and Sonja Green-Fortag and Joan Mullin as the saloon slatterns in “Voyage”).

“Bound East for Cardiff” (O’Neill’s first staged play, by the fabled Provincetown Players in 1916) looms as a murky “Lower Depths” in Dart Conrad’s set design. The actors’ rough brogues are authentic and comprehensible. The tramp steamer’s rhythmic, thudding “ka-lunk-ka-lunk” fill the pale darkness of the seamen’s hole (credit lighting and sound designer Peter Strauss).

The aura of squalor is not as textured in the curtain-closer, “The Long Voyage Home,” which offers a Swedish lunk (Bill A. Jones) about to be shanghaied from a waterfront dive. The acting and staging, however, maintain this solid salute to O’Neill’s centennial.

Performances run at 5651 Hollywood Blvd., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 7 p.m., through April 17. Tickets: $6-$19. (213) 462-6844.