Moonlight (play)
Encyclopedia
Moonlight is a play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 written by Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...

, in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, in September 1993.

Setting

THREE MAIN PLAYING AREAS:
1. Andy's bedroom — well furnished
2. Fred's bedroom — shabby
(These rooms are in different locations.)
3. An area in which Bridget appears, through which Andy moves at night and where Jake, Fred and Bridge play their scene. (Grove Press ed., n. pag.)

Synopsis

Andy, who is on his deathbed,
rehashes his youth, loves, lusts, and betrayals with his wife, [Bel], while simultaneously his two sons [Fred and Jake] — clinical, conspiratorial, the bloodless, intellectual offspring of a hearty anti-intellectual — sit in the shadows, speaking enigmatically and cyclically, stepping around and around the fact of their estrangement from their father, rationalizing their love-hate relations with him and the distance that they are unable to close even when their mother attempts to call them home. In counterpoint to their uncomprehending isolation between the extremes of the death before life and the death after is their younger sister, Bridget, who lightly bridges the gaps between youth and age, death and life. (Back cover of the Grove Press ed.)

Characters

  • ANDY, a man in his fifties
  • BEL, a woman of fifty
  • JAKE, a man of twenty-eight
  • FRED, a man of twenty-seven
  • MARIA, a woman of fifty
  • RALPH, a man in his fifties
  • BRIDGET, a girl of sixteen (Grove Press ed., n. pag.)

Premiere

First performed at the Almeida Theatre, London, on 7 September 1993; transferred to the Comedy Theatre in November 1993
Cast
  • Ian Holm
    Ian Holm
    Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...

     (Andy)
  • Anna Massey
    Anna Massey
    Anna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...

     (Bel)
  • Douglas Hodge
    Douglas Hodge
    Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...

     (Jake)
  • Michael Sheen
    Michael Sheen
    Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...

     (Fred)
  • Jill Johnson (Maria)
  • Edward de Souza
    Edward de Souza
    Edward James de Souza is a British character actor and graduate of RADA with ethnic Portuguese Indian and English origins.-Early life:...

     (Ralph)
  • Claire Skinner
    Claire Skinner
    Claire L. Skinner is an English actress, who is well known in the United Kingdom for her television career.-Biography:Born and brought up in Hemel Hempstead, Skinner, the youngest daughter of a shopkeeper and an Irish-born secretary, was immensely shy as a child...

     (Bridget)

Production team
  • David Leveaux
    David Leveaux
    David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals...

    , Director
  • Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley
    Bob Crowley is a theatre director, scenic and costume designer.Born in Cork, Ireland, he is the brother of director John Crowley...

    , Designer (HaroldPinter.org)

New York premiere

At the Laura Pels Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...

, 27 September – 17 December 1995
Opening Night Cast
  • Melissa Chalsma (Bridget)
  • Blythe Danner
    Blythe Danner
    Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.-Early life:...

     (Bel)
  • Paul Hecht
    Paul Hecht
    Paul Hecht is an English-born Canadian stage, film, and television actor best known for playing radio newsman Ross Buckingham in Howard Stern's Private Parts....

     (Ralph)
  • Barry McEvoy (Fred)
  • Jason Robards
    Jason Robards
    Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...

     (Andy)
  • Liev Schreiber
    Liev Schreiber
    Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...

     (Jake)
  • Kathleen Widdoes
    Kathleen Widdoes
    -Life and career:Widdoes was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Bernice and Eugene Widdoes. Widdoes moved to New York City to pursue stage work and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris under a Fulbright scholarship. From 1964 to 1972 she was married to well known actor Richard Jordan, with...

     (Maria)


Production team
  • Karel Reisz
    Karel Reisz
    Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...

    , Director
  • Tony Walton
    Tony Walton
    Tony Walton is an English set and costume designer.Walton was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. He began his career in 1957 with the stage design for Noel Coward's Broadway production of Conversation Piece. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s he designed for the New...

    , Set Designer
  • Mirena Rada, Costume Designer
  • Richard Pilbrow
    Richard Pilbrow
    Richard Pilbrow is an internationally renowned stage lighting designer, author, theatre consultant, and theatrical producer, film producer and television producer...

    , Lighting Designer
  • Tom Clark, Sound Designer (IOBDB
    Lortel Archives
    The Lortel Archives, or the Internet Off-Broadway Database is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway.The archives are named in honor of actress and theatrical producer Lucille Lortel.-See also:...

    )

BBC Radio 3 programme

Part of Harold Pinter Double Bill (with Voices) originally broadcast to marking Pinter's 75th birthday, in October 2005; rebroadcast as part of the Harold Pinter Tribute on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

's Drama on 3, on 15 February 2009.
Cast
  • Harold Pinter
    Harold Pinter
    Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

     (Andy)
  • Sara Kestelman
    Sara Kestelman
    Sara Kestelman is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in Lady Jane.-Biography:...

     (Bel)
  • John Shrapnel
    John Shrapnel
    John Shrapnel is an English actor.Shrapnel was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary Lillian Myfanwy and journalist/author Norman Shrapnel....

    (Ralph)
  • Jill Johnson (Maria)
  • Douglas Hodge
    Douglas Hodge
    Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...

     (Jake)
  • Harry Burton (Fred)
  • Indira Varma
    Indira Varma
    Indira Varma is an English actress. Her first major role was in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. She has gone on to appear in the television series Rome and Human Target.-Early life and background:...

     (Bridget)


Production team
  • Janet Whitaker, Director
  • Elizabeth Parker, Music

Works cited

  • Pinter, Harold
    Harold Pinter
    Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

    . Moonlight, New York: Grove Press
    Grove Press
    Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...

    , 1994. ISBN 0802133932 (10). ISBN 9780802133939 (13). (Parenthetical references to this edition appear in the text.)
  • –––. Moonlight. Harold Pinter Double Bill (with Voices). BBC Radio 3
    BBC Radio 3
    BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

     Drama Programmes — Drama on 3
    . BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

    , 15 Feb. 2009. Web
    World Wide Web
    The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

    . 15 Feb. 2009. [First broadcast Oct. 2005, as part of Pinter's 75th birthday celebration. Re-broadcast 15 Feb. 2009, as part of Harold Pinter Tribute. (Streaming audio accessible for 7 days after broadcasts).]

External links

  • MoonlightHaroldPinter.org: Official Website of the International Playwright Harold Pinter.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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