Synopsis Andy lies dying in his bed. As his wife, Bel, tries desperately to bring his estranged sons to his side his thoughts turn to his youth, loves, lust and fears, whilst the haunting presence of the things they have all lost swirl in the dark lonely spaces of this suburban household. A tragic comedy of family dysfunction, Moonlight is one of Harold Pinter's most human and poignant plays suffused with universal emotions: the cold dread of death; the pain of separation from loved ones; the longing for reunion; and the continuity of the family.
Harold Pinter’s little-known play Moonlight has received a rare revival at the Donmar Warehouse, where it opened this week (12 April 2011, previews from 7 April).
In Pinter’s tragicomedy of family dysfunction, which premiered at the Almeida in 1993 with a cast including Ian Holm, Douglas Hodge, Michael Sheen and Claire Skinner, Bel attempts to reconcile her dying husband Andy with his estranged sons.
Michael Coveney Whatsonstage.com ★★★ "Harold Pinter’s 75-minute play Moonlight is no masterpiece but was an important come-back for him in 1993 and confronts the bedbound Andy’s incomprehension and fear of death with a mordant and macabre frankness and top-hole scatological humour ... In a stylish revival by Bijan Sheibani, the somewhat static and disjointed idyll of memory and recrimination is coated in fluent staging, the darkness edged with strips of light in Bunny Christie’s design (lit by Jon Clark), an illuminated door suggesting a house of dreams ... It’s all very sleek and sinister and not at all moving. Bradley makes the most of his vision of death as a moonlit night with no cloud, and no horizon, indeterminate weather, and you hear the voice of Pinter loud and strong when he rises from his bed to sneak a drink: ‘Bugger them all. Cheers!’”
Libby Purves The Times ★★
“As enervating charades go, Harold Pinter’s 1993 play takes the biscuit. It was greeted at the time with routine obeisances to a formerly mould-breaking writer moving towards a lifetime Olivier and Nobel. But in 2011, I can only echo Captain Scott when confronted with another cold, dead wilderness: Great God, this is an awful play! ... All the cast ... are more than competent: the play is the problem ... I can only think that the normally wonderful Donmar decided to hoist a warning, rather as a gardener might string dead moles on the fence: let all playwrights and their sycophants be reminded where over-praise can lead ... Liam Garrigan and Daniel Mays do their best with the absurdism and whimsical archaisms (‘It came not his way nor did he seek it’) ... Two neighbours wander in and out, with little result ... At the start, Sheibani brings his cast on in line to stand glowering before moving to their beginners’ positions - deathbed, chair, floor. I like that. It underlines that this is artifice: a grim charade to walk away from, and thankfully forget, when its 75 minutes are up.”
"I find it strange that one of Harold Pinter's most accessible plays has had to wait 18 years for a major London revival. It deals, after all, with mortality, love, loss and separation: subjects that touch us all. But at least it's now back in a fine-tuned production by Bijan Sheibani which, even though a little short on humour, shows desperate people yearning to make contact across the chasms that divide them ... Donne's line that ‘no man is an island’ was one of Pinter's favourites; and what he shows, in this heartbreaking play, is that even when separated by death, distance or unhealed wounds, people still ache to connect ... The performances ... are exceptional. David Bradley's Andy is all spleen and scatalogical anger concealing an apprehension of death and a deep, unappeasable longing to see his sons. Deborah Findlay also subtly suggests that Bel, in her quiet way, is as much a verbal warrior as her husband and equally filled with a profound sense of grief over her lost sons ... Of all Pinter's plays, this is the one that speaks most directly to common experience and it is good to see it so sensitively revived.”
"When Moonlight premiered in 1993, it was acclaimed as a haunting and passionate demonstration of Harold Pinter's art. Now, though, it appears less profound and less darkly intriguing ... The main strength of Bijan Sheibani's revival lies in the performances. As Andy, David Bradley looks craggy and barks complaints impressively. Deborah Findlay's Bel has a quality of unyielding stillness, Liam Garrigan's Fred echoes his father's torpor by lingering slobbishly in his bed, Lisa Diveney is suitably wraithlike as the ghost of Andy's dead daughter Bridget and the always excellent Daniel Mays brings a fierce physical intensity to the role of Jake ... The characters take a morbid delight in verbal games, which are occasionally very funny. Sometimes a cliché is revitalised and sometimes its logic is undermined. The inane chatter of the middle classes is sent up nicely. But the mixture of poetry and whimsy makes the play unsatisfying and Sheibani's elegant, reverent production causes what is in fact a short piece to seem long. The decision to have the cast line up against the rear wall at the start, like suspects in an identity parade, reinforces the sense that this is an artificial and portentous vision of fractured relationships. It's slickly realised, yet feels rather flat and doesn't move us as it should."
"Moonlight was Harold Pinter’s last full-length play, though a short one at 80 minutes. It came after a long period of writer’s block and some hailed the piece as a return to form when it opened, largely I suspect because it avoided the glib political agitprop of so much of his later work. Yet watching this revival of the piece, it seems to me that Pinter was desperately replaying old riffs and themes to diminishing returns... But in one respect at least the play does work powerfully. I have rarely left a theatre feeling as desolate as I did after sitting through Moonlight ... If the play has a message it’s that life’s a bitch and then you die, while the character of the teenage ghost suggests that there may be no peace in the grave either. I would advise anyone in the grip of depression to give this play a very wide berth indeed... Bijan Sheibani’s production, with its modishly minimal design by Bunny Christie, is efficient rather than inspired. David Bradley, with that marvellous grating voice of his, offers a powerful mixture of misery and malignity as the dying Andy while Deborah Findlay oozes subtle passive aggression as his wife. Daniel Mays and Liam Garrigan seem like mere Pinteresque caricatures as the sons, Carol Royle and Paul Shelley are wasted in virtually non-existent roles, but at least Lisa Diveney brings a touching vulnerability to the ghostly Bridget. But unless you want to be brought low by both the play’s morbid subject matter and the decline in Pinter’s talent, I’d give Moonlight a miss."
Harold Pinter’s 75-minute play Moonlight is no masterpiece but was an important come-back for him in 1993 and confronts the bedbound Andy’s incomprehension and fear of death with a mordant and macabre frankness and top-hole scatological humour.
In a stylish revival by Bijan Sheibani, the somewhat static and disjointed idyll of memory and recrimination is coated in fluent staging, the darkness edged with strips of light in Bunny Christie’s design (lit by Jon Clark), an illuminated door suggesting a house of dreams.
David Bradley’s Andy mutters and barks his way ferociously and funnily through the last hours of his life, a civil servant who kept his foul language out of the office and where it properly belonged – in the home.
His wife, Bel (Deborah Findlay), sits quietly and patiently by the bed, sewing what may be his winding sheet, while his dead daughter Bridget (Lisa Diveney) wanders through a jungle of exotic plants, and his two sons re-enact past encounters, committee meetings, old pals’ acts and reunions.
These two, described by their father as “a sponging parasitical pair of ponces,” are estranged from him, and talk of him in the third person. Andy wants only to see his grandchildren. But he’s visited, fleetingly, by Maria (Carol Royle) and Ralph (Paul Shelley), with whom Andy and Bel are/were entwined.
Bel had an affair with both Maria and Ralph, while Andy, who rates Ralph’s efficiency as a football referee very low, was involved with Maria early in his marriage. The two bearded brothers – strikingly played by Daniel Mays and Liam Garrigan – answer their mother’s phone call with a pretence to be Chinese laundrymen. The family’s decimated.
It’s all very sleek and sinister and not at all moving. Bradley makes the most of his vision of death as a moonlit night with no cloud, and no horizon, indeterminate weather, and you hear the voice of Pinter loud and strong when he rises from his bed to sneak a drink: “Bugger them all. Cheers!”
Somewhere inside Moonlight is a fascinating drama about the relationships of a dying husband and his family. David Bradley and Deborah Findlay are both superb as a couple who now communicate with wounding insults with very occasional moments of tenderness. Helpfully the programme identifies their daughter as a ghost because there is no overt reference to her death other than Findlay's pained reaction at her mention. But why does Bradley ask to see his grandchildren when it appears that Bridget dies as a teenager? Pinter of course does not provide an answer to this question, but far worse is the absurdist drivel spoken by the two sons who act as if they are strangers. Pinter's apologists will claim it is deeply meaningful - it's not, it's gibberish and displays Pinter's disregard for his audience who are never allowed to know what his intentions were. Of course this is true of so many of Pinter's plays and I suspect he will now come in for a more critical reappraisal which could confine much of his work to obscurity (if they're not obscure enough already). The cast do their best and at least there is the welcome distraction whenever Lisa Diveney appears in the briefest of shorts. - David Baxter
14 May 11
WOS need to sort out their website as they are posting old reviews, in this case one by me, for a completely different play? In the case of MOONLIGHT it's two stars for the play but five for the terrific actors. Pinter writes the characters as if they are in some form of grotesque sitcom. I laughed and, at times, sympathised with the characters, but it mainly consisted of cheap joke followed by a heavy dose of surreal dialogue which could have come from an ancient episode of Monty Python. For me there has always been a touch of the smoke and mirrors about Pinter - East End kid made good with the intelligentsia. But I came to appreciate his work later in life and particularly when it was delivered by actors of the caliber of David Bradley. Perhaps, the formidable rage Pinter expressed towards the end of his life was for knowing his later work was not in the same league as his earlier work? - rds.
30 Apr 11
Certainly no masterpiece. It plays as though this is imitation Pinter as every line seems like a poor imitation of his much better plays. So one star for the play and the others for the terrific cast. - fred
Re-opened in 1992. Seats 254. 1999 - Ambassador Theatre Group takes over from the Associated Capital Theatres as the landlord of the Donmar Warehouse. 2002 - Michael Grandage succeeds Sam Mendes as Artistic Director of the Donmar. Nick Frankfort succeeds Caro Newling as Executive Producer.
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