Moonlight (play)

Moonlight
Moonlight
	1994 Grove Press edition
Written by	Harold Pinter
Characters	Andy, Bel, Bridget, Fred, Jake, Maria, Ralph
Date premiered	7 September 1993
Place premiered	Almeida Theatre, London
Original language	English
Subject	family, love, life, death, and dying
Genre	drama
Setting	house and flat
	Official site

Moonlight is a play written by Harold Pinter, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre, in London, in September 1993.^[1]

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.)

Productions

Premiere

First performed at the Almeida Theatre, London, on 7 September 1993; transferred to the Comedy Theatre in November 1993

Cast

Ian Holm (Andy)
Anna Massey (Bel)
Douglas Hodge (Jake)
Michael Sheen (Fred)
Jill Johnson (Maria)
Edward de Souza (Ralph)
Claire Skinner (Bridget)

Production team

David Leveaux, director
Bob Crowley, Designer (HaroldPinter.org)

New York premiere

At the Laura Pels Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, 27 September – 17 December 1995

Opening Night Cast

Melissa Chalsma (Bridget)
Blythe Danner (Bel)
Paul Hecht (Ralph)
Barry McEvoy (Fred)
Jason Robards (Andy)
Liev Schreiber (Jake)
Kathleen Widdoes (Maria)

Production team

Karel Reisz, director
Tony Walton, Set Designer
Mirena Rada, Costume Designer
Richard Pilbrow, Lighting Designer
Tom Clark, Sound Designer (IOBDB)

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's Drama on 3, on 15 February 2009.

Cast

Harold Pinter (Andy)
Sara Kestelman (Bel)
John Shrapnel(Ralph)
Jill Johnson (Maria)
Douglas Hodge (Jake)
Harry Burton (Fred)
Indira Varma (Bridget)

Production team

Janet Whitaker, director
Elizabeth Parker, Music

Works cited

Pinter, Harold. Moonlight, New York: Grove Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8021-3393-2 (10). ISBN 978-0-8021-3393-9 (13). (Parenthetical references to this edition appear in the text.)
–––. Moonlight. Harold Pinter Double Bill (with Voices). BBC Radio 3 Drama Programmes – Drama on 3. BBC, 15 February 2009. Web. 15 February 2009. [First broadcast Oct. 2005, as part of Pinter's 75th birthday celebration. Re-broadcast 15 February 2009, as part of Harold Pinter Tribute. (Streaming audio accessible for 7 days after broadcasts).]

References

^ Morrison, Blake (April 2011). "Pinter's Moonlight at the Donmar: Time to go". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 November 2019.

External links

Moonlight – HaroldPinter.org: Official Website of the International Playwright Harold Pinter.
Moonlight at the Internet Off-Broadway Database

[1] Morrison, Blake (April 2011). "Pinter's Moonlight at the Donmar: Time to go". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 November 2019.

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