With its recent American productions, the National Theatre's presentation of Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill feels surprisingly modern and fresh though set in the 20s and 30s. With a vibrant quartet of actors that advance through two decades of ever changing alliances and love affairs, O'Neill explores timeless questions about love, what it demands, and what sacrifices it entails when things don't go well. With its dramatic asides, incredible sets, sublime acting and excellent direction, the play allows us into each character's inner thoughts in a way that lightens the drama while developing character.

     The play begins in the study of one Professor Henry Leeds, father of Nina, but the first character on stage is Charles Marsden, one of many men who will love Nina. The first true love of her life, the professor is not well, though whether this is from age or guilt isn't clear. He persuaded Nina to postpone her marriage to the second great love of her life, the never-seen Gordon, who signs up for war and is killed. By the second scene, we find Charles consoling a grieving Nina, and the remaining two great men of her life enter. Dr. Edmund "Ned" Darrell has watched Nina throw herself into her nursing duties as a catharsis for never fulfilling her love with Gordon, but Ned also finds her throwing herself indiscriminately at men in an attempt to feel something, anything. He suggests to Charles that Nina needs to marry and have children quickly to satisfy that motherly need to sacrifice. Charles is hoping that Ned is thrusting Nina on Charles, but Ned instead proposes the hapless Sam Evans, a doting prat who worships the ground Nina walks on. Charles succumbs, advises Nina to marry Sam, thwarting his own desires, and Nina, who trusts Charles like her own father, acquiesces.

     Ironically enough, it's the third and fourth scenes that propel the pot into a captivating yarn. After a few months of wedded bliss, Sam's mother delivers a bombshell. Insanity runs in the Evans family, and Mrs. Evans begs Nina not to get pregnant for a long time because Sam's birth so early in the marriage drove Sam's father insane. Mrs. Evans naturally hid all this from Sam, who knows nothing of his family history. Nina, already pregnant, now understands with sickening clarity that she must abort her baby, the one thing she needed most, to save her husband. This action makes her loathe her weak husband, but Mrs. Evans isn't finished shocking her daughter-in-law: she suggests that Nina take a lover so that Nina might have the child she wants but break the line of insanity. No one need ever know, and Sam would be happy. Nina already has the man in mind, and Ned becomes the father of her future son.

O'Neil's second act masterfully explores multiple facets of the increasingly complicated quartet. Nina raises her son Gordon, Sam becomes a wildly successful businessman as he grows into fatherhood, Ned wants Nina all to himself and disappears for years at a time to get over her, and poor Charles, who suspects all that goes on, ages into a benign presence while Gordon grows into adulthood. Young Gordon eventually sees his Mom and Ned embrace and understands why "Uncle Ned" is always around. It takes Sam's unexpected death to bring things full circle. Gordon, now an adult, forgives his Mom and Ned for falling on love, and Nina settles down into a mature, restful relationship with poor old Charles, as they face the twilight years of their life.

     This highly complicated plot is suffused with a dramatic element called the aside, sometimes called an internal monologue, where the character reveals some thought in their head either directly to the audience or out of sequence with the actions in a scene. Here it masterfully allows the audience to see the internal struggles each character faces, allowing us to see what they think of each other and of themselves. Most crucially it lightens the tension so prevalent everywhere. More then once, Nina says "Dear old Charlie" to which Charlie responds despondently, "God damn dear old Charlie" like a wounded soul who'll never fulfill his love. O'Neill lets us see how these four souls, despite their jealousies and the jagged feelings, deeply care for each other and never revert to spilling secrets that will destroy lives. Not all characters deliver their asides in the same manner, but they do so in ways consistent with their character, and it works.

     Without four, supremely confident actors and a skilled director, this complex play would flounder. Jason Watkins makes Sam a lovable dweeb who is transformed into a confident master with Gordon's birth. His death is all the more heart-felt because of the genuine person he becomes. Darren Pettie, as Ned, captures great contradictions, wanting to tell Sam about Gordon, but not wanting to hurt Sam or Gordon. As Charles, the mother's boy, Charles Edwards brings poignancy to his part, the constant fourth wheel, but his comic timing is impeccable, at one moment shouting to the audience a question they've all asked, "What am I doing here?" Anne-Marie Duff as Nina, however, is the glue holding the three men and the play together. Duff is believable when she seduces Ned, when she curses Sam's mother for suggesting an abortion, when she belittles Gordon's fiancée, and when she stops Ned from telling Gordon who his father really is once Sam has died. It's a part Bette Davis would have savored, and Duff doesn't disappoint. Director Simon Godwin has wrestled great performances from all his cast members, but making us care, loathe, pity, and even hate all four of them at some point is the hallmark of holding a mirror up to life successfully.

     If that weren't enough, the set design exquisitely uses every inch of the stage, and the lighting fostered appropriate moods for different scenes. Soutra Gilmour's lovingly designed set for Act I splits the stage in thirds that rotate clockwise, becoming the Leeds study, Mrs. Evans' kitchen, and finally Sam Evans' summer home. In one brilliant move, Simon Godwin advances from the Leeds study to the Summer home, but as Mrs. Evans' kitchen passes, we see Geraldine Alexander as Mrs. Evans sitting alone by candlelight; it's a lovely touch. Act II keeps only the summer home briefly before it is replaced entirely with an art deco shell surrounding the staircase of the successful Evans family home. Then the crew effortlessly remove the shell to bring a yacht on the stage; when the yacht is turned around, it becomes the pier near the home after the funeral. The silvery panels for most of Act II reflect whatever color is mood appropriate: sunny blue for the yacht; rose for the Evans' home; violet sunset for the beach as the play closes. In that final moment, Charles finally gets his wish fulfilled, to nurture and take care of Nina in her remaining days. He holds her tenderly and kisses her forehead as the lights fade, an effective ending to the O'Neill play.