Review: Salt-water Moon, Finborough Theatre

Review: Salt-water Moon, Finborough Theatre

This Finborough set for Salt-Water Moon (like lots of theirs) is a good looking sight to stroll into. The flooring is strewn with wooden chips, there’s a easy metallic bench and desk, and the wall is roofed in stars. It’s elegant, easy and delightful, instantly setting a heat and welcoming tone: prime work by designer Mim Houghton.

It is 1926. Jacob (Joseph Potter) vanished a yr in the past to hunt work in Toronto. He deserted his younger sweetheart Mary (Bryony Miller) however has now returned intent on rekindling their relationship, within the full data that she is engaged to a different.

Jacob strides onto the stage, a tune on his lips and bringing an conceited confidence with him, to assert what he considers to be his due. Mary will likely be his once more and he’ll make it occur by way of pressure of will. However, because the play progresses, we see the underside of his bluster, the loss and the loneliness which he inflicted, knowingly, on each of them. Potter brings a powerful physicality to the function, zipping across the stage, leaping on the bench; investing Jacob’s motion with all his feelings and channelling his vitality into impressions of Tom Mix, an early Westerns star.

Miller’s Mary seems standoffish, stoic and most of all harm. She is trapped, caught with what is anticipated of a younger girl in a small neighborhood within the mid-Nineteen Twenties. Her function has been determined for her in some ways. Her engagement offers her some security and stability, and presumably gives the prospect to assist her mom and sister. Initially she has no intent to permit Jacob again into her life or to take him again as her lover. We see that her emotions for him haven’t modified however she has pushed them down inside and he or she, initially, doesn’t need them to return again. He wronged her, she has moved on together with her life. But as they spend a brief period of time collectively bickering and reminiscing, Miller does a wonderful job of displaying how Mary permits these emotions to resurface and the unstated battle she has inside to resolve if that is what she even needs.

Both performances are wonderful, though the broad Newfoundland accents bounce in every single place and alter from line to line, with a particular Irish accent coming by way of greater than as soon as. Potter and Miller convey depth to their characters and allow us to see the emotions they’ve for one another, whilst they appear an entire distinction.

David French’s script makes use of Jacob’s household historical past to discover the devastating influence on Newfoundland after the Newfoundland Regiment was all however worn out on the Battle of the Somme throughout World War 1. The programme offers a whole lot of additional details about this and Salt-Water Moon looks like it’s a piece that’s essential to its setting in Newfoundland, however that additionally maybe depends on a having a bit extra data of the realm and the occasions than the play itself gives. The relationship between Mary and Jacob is convincing, the setting simply barely much less so.

The efficiency feels barely too quick: initially programmed as 90 minutes, it runs to 75. Early on the tempo is ready and it’s off. One line is barely completed earlier than one other arrives, and these strains will not be zingers designed for a quick stream. It doesn’t match with the play and including again a bit operating time – even stretching the primary ten minutes a bit longer – can be most welcome. Still, two sturdy performances on a good looking, elegant set looks like a great begin to the yr for The Finborough.

Author: David French
Director: Peter Kavanagh
Designer: Mim Houghton
Producer: Cumulus Productions London in affiliation with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.

Salt-water Moon performs at Finborough Theatre till 28 January. Further info and bookings may be discovered right here.