The 70 minute span of Daniel Kanaber’s new play Under Three Moons is divided into three acts, each separated by a decade. We first meet Michael and Paul on a school trip in Dijon twenty years ago, again ten years later in a beach shack in Pembrokeshire, and finally in the present day in a bedroom at Michael’s home in Manchester.
These three episodes, linked by the turning of the moon and
the flickering of stars, show snapshots into the lives of two young men
struggling with their own demons and making sense of the demands of
masculinity.
At first it seems an unlikely friendship. The teenage Michael
is trying to fit in with the crowd, but the laddish tricks they’ve been playing
don’t sit comfortably with him and he makes awkward attempts to make amends
with a traumatised Paul. In their twenties they sit in the cold night air on
the beach, recalling events of the intervening years. Now it’s Michael who
seems the more troubled, as he wades out into the cold surf. And finally the
friends are together again in the present, as Paul makes a fleeting unscheduled
visit to Michael’s home. Michael tries to make Paul comfortable whilst keeping
one ear out for the baby monitor. Here different concepts of what constitutes
success bubble under the surface of their fragmented conversation.
It’s at night that the demons come out, and on each occasion
it’s at night that we find the two friends confronting or evading them, always
under the watchful gaze of the moon. Kyle Rowe and Daniel Kuppan give subtle
and nuanced performances, with Adam Quayle’s characteristically delicate
direction giving Kanaber’s text time to breathe. Often the most telling parts
of the dialogue are in the weighty silences that sit between the words.
Katy Scott’s small circular island of a set, floating in a
sea of blackness, at once suggests isolation and infinity, and a soundscape
from Chris Hope and Chris James washes in tides between scenes.
There is a nebulous quality to the writing that suggests
ideas rather than being entirely prescriptive about the challenges that the
characters face. This enables each viewer to interpret the text in their own
way. The play, which is on tour, landed in Liverpool the day before World
Mental Health day, making its run this week all the more timely. This work that
can be viewed with detachment as a piece of theatre with two compelling
performances but, more than that, it should begin conversations to enable men
to explore some of the more difficult problems of being.
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| Under Three Moons images by Decoy Media |
Under Three Moons is produced by Box of Tricks Theatre, and
continues touring until November. North West audiences who missed it at Unity
can catch performances at Crewe Lyceum, Edge Hill University and Theatr Clwyd.
Full tour information can be founds here: https://boxoftrickstheatre.co.uk/production/under-three-moons/
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