Ruby Moon
Deck Chair Theatre Company

Ruby Moon by Melbourne playwright Matt Cameron, originally written for a young adult audience, is making its WA premiere as part of Deck Chair’s Umbrella program, and is the latest offering from the artistic duo Jeremy and Kate Rice through their company Always Working Artists.

The production challenges the notion of safety and society’s fears and perceptions regarding missing children with an unusual and familiar fairytale feel to it. Once upon time little Ruby Moon sets off down the end of a suburban cal-de-sac to visit her Grandma, and never returns. For a long time afterwards, Ruby’s parents, Sylvie (Kate Rice) and Ray (Benj D’Addario) act out Ruby’s disappearance and wait for word while interrogating the neighbours, finding mysterious clues inside card board boxes.

Sylvie and Ray’s powerlessness is played out in a series of fantasy interviews with the local misfits. What happened to Ruby as she walked down Flaming Tree Grove to her Grandma’s house? Is Ruby real or is she a fractured memory from a favourite fairytale? Who could be responsible for her disappearance? Was it the next door neighbor?

At various times throughout the play, Ruby’s parents become child-like, obsessively trapped in denial, soother and aggressor, desperate and hopeful and are jammed into the last moments of loss, struggling to get out. More often than not, it is Rice’s acting that appears dry, and emotionally superficial compared to D’Addario’s skillful comedic timing, especially when he plays out various neighbours, giving the show its much needed lift.

His oddball performances such as Sid the clown, who everyone hates, and Sunny Jim who is obsessed with firearms and likes to teach dogs to salute were all very humorous, especially the poem about a mother’s attitude towards her children with the opening line “Shut up!” was fantastic. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed Kate’s interpretation of a god worshiping spinster with an outspoken parrot as well as her European accent when portraying the local stripper Veronica Maine seductively saying, “Innovence gets vhat they deserve”.

Overall, Jeremy Rice’s direction regarding the actors’ journeys into the deeper parts of their characters was not entirely successful, and the dress changes for each character transformation were cumbersome, further slowing the show unnecessarily. Additionally, Rice’s directorial decision to soften the angst and agony of Ruby’s parents over the disappearance of their child without focusing on the inside workings of her parent’s self created psychotic minds’ was an alternative interpretation regarding Cameron’s script, pushing the audience to search deeper into what was being offered.

Credits