Sometimes you have to squint to detect prophetic flickers of genius in the early works of great artists. In the case of Eugene O’Neill’s “Beyond the Horizon,” at least as it has been revived at the Irish Repertory Theater, you have to squint hard enough to develop a new set of crow’s feet.

This bleak drama from 1920, a tale of two brothers beaten up by bad choices and badder karma, won O’Neill the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes but has seldom been staged in New York in recent years. Ciaran O’Reilly’s dutiful production, which opened on Sunday night, confirms why. Schematic, contrived and so excessively self-explanatory that you keep wanting to reassure it, “It’s O.K., really, we get your point,” this is a play that requires transcendent acting to elicit the pain, anger and pessimism that O’Neill would later channel to such devastating effect.

No such performances are on offer in Mr. O’Reilly’s production. Unlike the current “Early Plays” at St. Ann’s Warehouse, in which the experimental director Richard Maxwell renders one-acts by the young O’Neill as robotic exercises in nihilism, this “Horizon” uses no subversive interpretive tricks. It’s a naturalistic, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other march into an irony-rich destiny that even Thomas Hardy might have judged a tad harsh.

“Horizon” was the first play by O’Neill I ever read, at 9 or 10, and as a black-and-white introduction to a dramatist’s worldview it’s not inappropriate reading for preadolescents. (On the other hand, its portrait of life as a dream-smothering joker might well scar a sensitive, unformed mind. Thanks a lot, Dad, for the recommendation.)

The setup is as easily chartable as an equation from an algebra-for-dummies class. The Mayo brothers, Andrew (Rod Brogan) and Robert (Lucas Hall), have grown up on a modest New England farm. They’re very close and as different as overalls and a poet’s smock. The pragmatic, handy Andrew loves it there, but the intellectual Robert, O’Neill’s alter ego, is filled with wanderlust, longing to escape to that magical world beyond the you-know-what.

They might well have followed the paths they were meant to pursue if they hadn’t fallen in love with the same local girl, the sweet-and-sour Ruth Atkins (Wrenn Schmidt). On the eve of his departure for exotic lands with his seafaring uncle (John Thomas Waite, in twinkly leprechaun mode) Robert learns that Ruth loves him and decides to stay behind and run the farm with Dad (David Sitler, in “American Gothic” mode). The crestfallen Andrew takes Robert’s place, which means that for everyone in the play (except maybe the twinkly uncle), happiness has now left the building.

Set on a rustic wooden-plank stage against a post-Impressionist backdrop of a changeable sky (Hugh Landwehr is the designer), Mr. O’Reilly’s production tends to strikes single emotional notes instead of chords. The cast members — who also include Johanna Leister as the boys’ anxious mother and Patricia Conolly as a euthanasia-worthy mother-in-law from hell — don’t overact.

But you’re almost always aware that they’re acting, with careful illustrative gestures. (When Robert speaks of what’s “beyond the horizon,” which he does often, he fixes his eyes on some misty middle distance above our heads.) And because the play spells out its themes again and again, the overall effect suggests marketing reps demonstrating the latest model in man-shredding fate.

The play comes closest to catching fire when the whole Mayo clan erupts into savage, wounding fights that presage the scalding family donnybrooks of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” But it’s hard to develop much empathy for anyone, especially the quickly disillusioned Ruth, whom Ms. Schmidt portrays in an embittered, burned-out monotone for the entire last act.

Not that O’Neill gives the poor creature any chance to claim our affections. The Strindbergian misogyny at work here is head spinning, and you’re not sure whether to laugh or gasp when Ruth is denounced in the last scene with the devastating words, “You ... you woman!”

The Irish Repertory Theater, an admirable and resourceful company, previously proved that early, seemingly unrevivable O’Neill can succeed beautifully with its inspired production of “The Emperor Jones” several years ago (also directed by Mr. O’Reilly). But theatergoers new to O’Neill might wonder, on the basis of this production (especially combined with Mr. Maxwell’s disappointing “Early Plays”), why he belongs to the pantheon of the greatest dramatists.

Fortunately, in O’Neill’s case, there really was something extraordinary waiting — for him and the American theater — beyond that cloudy old horizon that Robert never got past.

Beyond the Horizon

By Eugene O’Neill; directed by Ciaran O’Reilly; sets by Hugh Landwehr; costumes by Linda Fisher and Jessica Barrios; lighting by Brian Nason; music by Ryan Rumery; sound by M. Florian Staab; hair and wig design by Robert-Charles Vallance; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis; production stage manager, April Ann Kline. Presented by the Irish Repertory Theater, Charlotte Moore, artistic director; Mr. O’Reilly, producing director. At the Irish Repertory Theater, 132 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, (212) 727-2737; irishrep.org. Through April 8. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

WITH: Rod Brogan (Andrew Mayo), Patricia Conolly (Mrs. Atkins), Lucas Hall (Robert Mayo), Jonathan Judge-Russo (Ben), Aimée Laurence (Mary), Johanna Leister (Kate Mayo), Wrenn Schmidt (Ruth Atkins), David Sitler (James Mayo) and John Thomas Waite (Capt. Dick Scott/Dr. Fawcett).