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Partisan Theatre presents
MOONSHADOW
Writer: Steve Hennessy
Director: Chris Loveless
White Bear Theatre
Stage Management: Patricia Andreucci
23 June – 19 July 2009
A review by Jafar Iqbal for EXTRA! EXTRA!
An idea for a night out at the theatre: dress up to the nines – a smart shirt for the gentleman and a nice, subtly revealing evening dress for the lady. Drive to Covent Garden, park the car for a reasonably good price and walk to the building. Pick up the tickets and indulge in some champagne at the bar. Two hours later, find a nice, trendy restaurant and, avoiding numbers and figures, settle down to a good meal. After gateau and the last glass of rose, take out the credit card (tipping, of course) and head home. Alternatively, you could find what’s in the wardrobe (jeans and T-shirt sounds good), remember to pick up your wallet, and walk to the pub. Cider is on tap, tennis on the flat screens and, for an hour, you can watch a group of actors perform for you. There’s pork scratchings too, if you’re hungry. The pub? The White Bear. The play? Moonshadow by Steve Hennessy. Its four actors, to be precise, making up the cast for this Chris Loveless-directed short play. The year is 1999, the month is August. The total eclipse is drawing closer and John (played by Michael Dylan) is desperate to be there. Only thing stopping him is his incarceration in a psychiatric ward, and John’s own deteriorating condition. Doctor Brown (Oliver Hume) is the man responsible for John not being allowed to leave, whilst Judy (Annabel Bates) and Lucy (Beverly Longhurst) are on the young man’s side. As the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day grows nearer, John formulates his escape plan. In all fairness, to give a brief synopsis of Moonshadow would be giving it a disservice. Brief synopses like the one above can, and probably would, make the play sound like an imitation of One Flew The Cuckoo’s Nest; and make no mistake about it, the similarities are definitely there. This is to be expected, though. After all, you’re dealing with the life of a man trapped in a psychiatric ward and wanting to escape, with the evil warden standing in his way. Ken Kesey would be proud. But just like Kesey’s fantastic novel, Moonshadow is so much more than the synopsis will have you believe. The strength of the play may lie in other places, but the beauty is definitely in its intricacies. Mental health, psychiatry, religion, sex, life – just some of the issues explored with an unbiased sincerity. As was to be expected from a performance produced by companies that deal directly with mental health issues, the play was as educational and eye-opening as it was entertaining. So much thought was given to each character – their emotions, insecurities, conflicts – that you cared for their happiness and empathised with their shortcomings. And therein lies the first big strength of the play – the acting. There’s only so much a script and a director can do in getting the audience to care about what they are watching. The real work is left to the actors on the stage on the day, and they delivered. There was an honesty in every performance, a sense of reality that sucked the audience in. Dylan heads the cast as John and is tremendous in his depiction of a lovable but troubled soul. Whether it’s sitting alone on stage talking to the audience, or interacting with the rest of the cast, he is flawless. The rest follow suit admirably, though. As Judy, Bates is brilliant, switching between humorous love interest and sex-craved patient with little effort. It also takes little effort to hate Hume’s portrayal of Doctor Brown, his large frame and excellent facials adding to his cold demeanour; and finally, Longhurst is perhaps the character we are most looking forward to hearing, her delivery beautifully laced with sarcasm and wit. The other strength of the play is in its technical department. There are very few props – four cubed boxes and a long rectangular one, to be exact – and that is about it. Sound and lighting is used simply, scene changes were quick and everything flowed without any trouble. It didn’t seem like there was a strong desire to get too complex, and that worked. In fact, simplicity is what is most enjoyable about the whole experience of watching Moonshadow. There aren’t cleverly crafted sets or needlessly difficult uses of sound and light. There aren’t elaborate scene changes that leave you waiting too long, or a complex plot that is difficult to follow. This is, quite simply (no pun intended), an honest production that concentrates more on performance than glamour. A play like this shows that tons of money does not need to be spent to watch good theatre; brilliant theatre can be found in small venues. Theatre and new writing at it’s most raw.
Tues to Sat 7.30pm, Sunday 5pm (no performances on Monday) £12.00 (full); £10.00 (concessions)
The White Bear Theatre, 138 Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4DJ
Box Office: 020 7793 9193 OR online at http://www.ticketweb.co.uk
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