By James Karas
David French’s Salt-Water Moon is a play about love
and courtship that is full of humour and tenderness. It is set on the front
porch and yard of a house in the seaside town of Coley’s Point, Newfoundland in
1926. That is ten years after the Battle of the Somme where so many
Newfoundlanders were slaughtered.
Jacob Mercer (Kawa Ada), a strapping young man of seventeen, left his
sweetheart Mary Snow (Mayko Nguyen) without so much as a goodbye and went to
work in Toronto. A year later (the opening of the play) he returns to an angry
Mary who is engaged to marry a well-off young man. Jacob must use all his wits,
charm, braggadocio and, in the end, love to win Mary back.
Ania Soul, Kawa Ada and Mayko Nguyen. Photo: Joseph
Michael Photography
When the lights go on for the current production, we see a Musician
(Ania Soul) playing a guitar and singing. There are some forty to fifty candles
on the stage and a young woman goes around lighting them. It is a slow process
and my first thought is “I hope she does not intend to light all of them.” She
does and it takes about ten (?)minutes to do it.
The woman is wearing blue jeans and turns out to be Mary. We will soon
meet a young man wearing blue jeans and he will be Jacob. The lit candles are
the entire set – no porch, no back yard and the Musician will never leave the
stage. She will strum her guitar and occasionally sing. There are stretches of
time when she is not doing anything and we can be grateful for it that but her
presence on stage and her singing and playing are at best annoying.
After the candles are lit, the Musician reads French’s stage directions
so that we can place the play and the characters in context. She will read
stage directions a number of times during the performance.
Jacob and Mary must exude innocence; convey humour and romance in the
moon-lit night of August 1926. She feels angry, abandoned and betrayed. She has
found another man who will provide her with the means to escape her humiliating
poverty.
Kawa Ada and Mayko Nguyen. Photo: Joseph
Michael Photography
Jacob has to search for a way to get to her back. He makes up stories
about girls in Toronto, brings her silk stockings and tells jokes until he
finally breaks through.
French’s language in the Newfoundland accent has a lilt and musicality
that is completely lacking from this production. Ada and Nguyen have no lilt or
music in their voices and at times sound wooden. A well-built young man and an
attractive woman without the freshness of youth, innocence and musicality
cannot do Jacob and Mary justice. Reading the stage directions is no substitute
for following them. A static performance is not an improvement. Providing musical
accompaniment made things worse.
Director Ravi Jain has taken brave and daring steps to reimagine Salt-Water
Moon as far away from its roots as possible. That is laudable and when
it works it is theatrical magic. But when you take away the original magic of
the play and do not find a compelling replacement the result can be
numbing. _____
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