REVIEW: SALT-WATER MOON at Finborough Theatre 3-28 January 2023

‘The ruin of war and the subsequent disaster of poverty seem, in this production, unlikely bedfellows to the melodrama of the love story presented here’ ★★★

From the outset, everything about this production of Salt-Water Moon is romantic. As we enter, the crush and clatter of the audience’s footsteps are muffled by a wonderfully soft bark floor, upon which sits gently rusting garden furniture that might have descended from the Von Trapp family garden. The backdrop is constructed of pearlescent globes, like distant stars, and as the play opens, one half of our love-struck couple, Mary, gazes up at them through a burnished bronze telescope.

Mary (Bryony Miller) is, at seventeen, already engaged to an uninspiring schoolteacher, who promises stability and safety to a young woman who will struggle to find it elsewhere. The return of former love Jacob (Joseph Potter) throws Mary’s plans into question and thus the play’s central question – will they, or won’t they? – is established. Of course, the fundamental problem with such a dichotomy is that the play can only end in one of two ways. We are watching a story where the ending is, more or less, a given. Will there be heartbreak or happiness, and which is more satisfying? Of course, this doesn’t have to be a deficiency; many love stories manage to present time-worn stories with charm and dynamism. Here, however, some of the magic is a little too wrote.

If some of the romance seems overblown, it is perhaps due to the age of the characters. It is easy, in this production, to forget that the characters are only seventeen and eighteen, and that their long estrangement can only be a little more than a year. Of course, to Mary and Jacob, this seems an eternity, but the production does little to manage the dichotomy between the teenager’s outlook and the audience’s experience.

The play introduces us to the role of the Newfoundland Regiment in the First World War, specifically the tragedy of the Battle of the Somme. By 1926, when this play is set, our lead characters are the progeny of the soldiers that brutally died in Beaumont-Hamel, a reminder of the absence of first-hand witnesses who cannot now speak for themselves. The play does a reasonable job of addressing how this inherited trauma unites and typifies the Newfoundland identity. Indeed, Mary and Jacob are united by their mutual loss, in contract to Mary’s intended, whose father escaped the war unscathed. The sense of honour and specifically male dignity within the household is key to Jacob’s character and a clear motivation for much of his anger. However, the ruin of war and the subsequent disaster of poverty seem, in this production, unlikely bedfellows to the melodrama of the love story presented. Mary’s fragility and Jacob’s anger are direct symptoms of their surroundings, but for some reason their story does not feel cohesive with the tragedy in which they are mired.

Miller’s performance is understated and poised, well-suited to the Finborough’s small space. Towards the end of the piece there are genuinely beautiful moments in which Miller succeeds in crystallising Mary’s emotional crux. The character, when we are allowed to see her, conceals her desperation well, as a result the part does not feel fulfilling. In contract to Mary’s softness, Potter’s Jacob is bolshy, performative, charming to the point of pushy. He is hugely watchable, though perhaps the performance is bigger than the space allows. Whether the two are convincing as a couple is debatable, and modern audiences may find Jacob’s insistent courtship of Mary overly aggressive.

As a theatre that is specifically interested in reanimating obscure and foreign work, Salt-Water Moon is a thoughtful choice, however the production does not seem to sufficiently engage with the deficiencies of the script.

Salt-Water Moon by David French

Finborough Theatre

3-28 January 2023

Box Officehttps://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/salt-water-moon/

Reviewer Natalie MacKinnon

Natalie is a writer and playwright from Edinburgh. She is a graduate of the Lir Academy for Dramatic Arts in Dublin and the Traverse Young Writers group in Edinburgh. Her writing has been performed on stage in the UK and Ireland and has been adapted for radio by the BBC.