'The Moon, The Moon' at Southwark Playhouse - review

"Stay and let them heal you. Or go with the moon and live." It should be 'Stay and let them put you through an hour and a half of trite. Or go and do something else!'

Don't be fooled by the sweet description of a man lost in life and a picture of a person lazing on a peaceful crescent moon that publicises this show. It should depict a bloodied moon presiding over a man in chains in some sort of sick game of seduction and you would have a better picture and would be better prepared for events ahead.

The man (Jon Spooner) has somehow come to be lost on a beach with a Christmas dinner in a bag. A stranger (Tim Chipping) finds him and offers to let him and his female companion (Suzanne Ahmet) help him. The moon (Helen Cassidy), all the while, is talking to the man but does not warn him about the sinister couple until he's locked in their cellar and being subjected to misguided psychoanalysis and punishment by the couple.

I expected to thoroughly enjoy the play as it started so beautifully, with the moon singing ever so sweetly to the man, that it gave me goosebumps. That, and the fact that their relationship and chemistry on stage was perfect. However, along bumbles the beastly couple and the play is absolutely destroyed by their implausible pairing, miscasting and painful acting that leads into a story so far removed from the initial one that you feel as if two plays have collided and left a wreckage in its wake!

I felt cheated on so so many levels. Each time the ghastly couple come on, it was utterly painful and I wish they would disappear and let the moon and the man continue. I felt cheated that I was subjected to crude language and unnecessary lewd behaviour for seemingly cheap laughs, to shock the audience just for the sake of it, and not to punctuate the story. I felt absolutely disappointed that the truly worthy and poignant tale between the moon, her songs and the man, were not the focus of the play and prolonged. Lastly, I was mortified that it turned into a low budget horror flick type mess with plenty, I mean plenty, of blood and guts and an unresolved ending.

A woman walked in the woods and an owl said "Beware, beware, the moon, the moon!" She now understands what it meant! Maybe there was no woman or even an owl. The point is however, that this short story was more intriguing than the aforementioned show. Go and look up at the stars at night or listen to water in a fountain. Do something other than watch This play. This play!