Yellow Moon

MTC's Yellow Moon is dynamic, elegant and captivating. Everything about this production fits together snugly, almost perfectly, and this unity is key to its success. Combining a contemporary British setting with American folklore and visuals, with an uncompromisingly Australian performance to boot, the play creates a surprisingly pleasing synergy. Scottish playwright David Greig's language is incredibly expressive, carrying with it a context that continuously gives sense to the fast-moving narrative without overdoing it. The story is told as somewhat of a ballad with vignettes, with the narrative's frame of reference shifting acrobatically to find the most interesting characters to narrate at a given moment and to elaborate tension. The actors' ability to maintain momentum and blend action and narration seamlessly cannot be overpraised. With a dynamic mixture of graceful poetics and poignant, believable dialogue, Greig effectively evokes the world of the play in the voices of the characters. The approach to design has clearly taken this into consideration. As an example, THE SWEATS (aka Pete Goodwin) provides a haunting sound design that hovers behind the action, contemplative and expansive. When sound embodies a part of the action on stage, it is natural and essential to the play.  The entire production follows this approach, with the individual elements figuring boldly into the imagining of the world, working as an ensemble to truly bring Greig's storytelling to life.