Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sam Shepard: Ages of the Moon

Peacock Theatre, til Sat 14 April
A sort of grumpy old men for the 21st century with shades of Beckett, as two old friends sit on a porch in the middle of nowhere, one invading the other's jealously guarded history. Ames is licking his wounds because his wife has thrown him out, Byron is there to pick up the pieces and be at the receiving end of Ames's increasingly abusive outbursts. There's alot of bourbon, a gun, a bit of fun with a ceiling fan, a rambling story about Roger Miller and the promise of a lunar eclipse. It's entertaining, you think, but maybe not worth writing a whole new play for. And then suddenly you're in there, hook, line and sinker, surrounded by the truth of your own mortality.
Great performances from Stephen Rea as Ames and Sean McGinley as Byron - initially the balance is weighted towards Rea, gruff, jumpy and acerbic, but McGinley really comes into his own in the final part of the play. Beautiful lighting from Paul Keoghan, as the sky slowly shifts from a soft empty blue to the dark night of a total eclipse. www.abbeytheatre.ie

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