Moonlight
Subject: Quicktake - "Moonlight" by Harold Pinter
Date: Wed, June 28, 11:58 PM
Quicktake on MOONLIGHT
"Moonlight" (1993) is one of the last of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter's 29 some plays. It revisits many of his earlier themes of family, responsibility, and death in a poetic framework where the drama is only implied. The QE2 Players, in their annual outing at the BCA have given the work a careful journeyman like production. Director Michael Halloran uses the particular strengths of his diverse cast to let the language of the piece speak for itself, however obliquely.
Central to the piece is Jim Robinson as Andy, a retired civil servant raging against fate from his deathbed. Gwen Sweet is his patient and often acerbic wife. Their youngest, Bridget played by Emma Stanton, functions as a minor chorus to the action, and may in fact be a ghost. Their two sons, who're somewhere planning something, but doing very little, are Rob Rota as Jake and Travor Thompson as Fred. This duo is almost a parody of early Pinter by the master; their dialogue is almost entirely constructed from cliches. Jennifer Barton Jones and Edwin Bescheler are Maria and Ralph, friends of the family, who seem to be in contact with the boys, who are somehow estranged from their father. The action resists any definite interpretation.
The shows been kept simple. Cara McCarthy's set has two acting areas on levels with furniture, backed by a blue scrim overlaid with a grid of pinkish rectangles. Kathy Maloney's lights help define the show from moment to moment. Andy Bergman has selected some trancy music to provide transitions. All in all it's an effective use of the oldest theatre space at the BCA. The whole effort has the touch of the Absurd necessary to set off the obscure dialogue, which provides clues to the action, but little conclusion, just moonshine.
"Moonlight" by Harold Pinter, June 28 - July 1
QE2 Players at Plaza Theatre, BCA
539 Tremont, (617) 933 - 8600
QE2 Playersa
posted by will at 11:06 AM
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