A Review of Nocturne Productions’ This is How we Walk on the Moon

With student writing there are two things to consider: the writer and the performers. In the case of This is How we Walk on the Moon, a reviewer is confronted with many writers and performers, all of them completely separate and yet intertwined in a clever meshing. The whole performance was something new, something that I have certainly never seen during my time at Oxford.

From the moment that people saw that this would be an immersive performance, there was a great deal of speculation about what this would entail and how it would be pulled off. Apart from the use of the stools and a paper mâché moon, the audience was given no sense of what to expect. The answer: something magical and unusual. The theatre looked incredible, with the ceiling of The Michael Pilch Studio being decorated with glow in the dark stars, and the space festooned with great swathes of organza. Looking far from its usual self, the black box was transformed. Unsure how to behave in this environment, the audience stood and waited to be instructed. It was the actors who took charge, ushering them into the middle of the space in preparation for the opening of the show. These actors were not in character, simply interacting normally with their peers. It was only as Cosimo Asvisio jumped onto a stool that hush descended and we began to comprehend how the show would play out. With monologues cutting across each other, actors jumping on and off stools, moving through the crowd, interacting with audience members and bringing them into the unfolding narratives… From the use of lighting to the blackouts to the acting of cutting an audience member’s hair, it became immediately clear that this is a piece that has had a lot of thought put into it.

As for the monologues themselves, they were woven through each other, the lengths of each part growing and shrinking depending on the levels of tension and exposition. Individually they told stories and together they wove a whole that seemed to create a well rounded view on life. Let us begin not at the beginning, but with the piece that most caught my attention, a piece that
will possibly cause some controversy within the Oxford community. Max Morgan’s ‘Ammonite’ tackles the topic of autism, drawing inspiration from Francis Lee’s film by the same name and Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitos. While I will be the first to commend a depiction of neurodivergence in a world that is still very much coming to grips with the concept and Ethan Bareham’s predictably fantastic performance, I am reticent about certain aspects of the monologue. There was the sense that this piece was drawing on autism stereotypes, being a commonly held view of an autistic child but certainly not the most flattering or diverse. Moreover, the use of autistic distress as a form of comedy was a little on the nose. Despite the possibly problematic elements of the piece, there was no denying that this was well written and powerfully performed.

The other monologues ranged from a hairdresser to a woman in an escape room to dreams about pirates… None of them could in any way be described as usual or dull, each having stand out moments that were nicely spaced throughout the course of the performance. While I am not sure that completely understood what was happening in each piece, there was no denying the standard of the performances. Juliette Imbert’s escape room enthusiast was excellent, the audience being drawn into her story and the tension maintained despite the jumping through other tales before coming back to where we were in the narrative. Equally, Suzie Weidmann’s character, with her pirate dreams and slightly baffling ending, was compellingly performed. In risk of simply listing
each of the monologues, I will just say that both ‘Jealous Bitch’ and ‘Hairdresser Dave’ particularly caught my eye. What did all of these characters have in common? Their lives appear to be falling to pieces.

The growing tension of this production was executed with perfection, as was the ways in which the cast were constantly moving and ducking in and out of each other’s tales. Likewise, as we reached the end, Bareham’s repeated line from the opening of his monologue was a nice touch. Director Max Morgan has clearly considered the ways in which immersive theatre could be used on such a small scale, with the result hopefully living up to his expectations. As someone who chose a seat over the crowd, I cannot comment on whether it was a success with certainty. However, it was a pleasure to have an opportunity to review something so different to the norm and I congratulate the writers and admire them for accepting that their carefully constructed monologues would be cut and reassembled to create a jigsaw puzzle. They trusted the design and this paid off, the overall effect working well. I am sure that if any other directors were interested in doing something similar, Morgan would have some notes of things that could be done differently, but all in all it was a well performed and clever piece of theatre. Despite my qualms about one of the monologues, I definitely recommend taking an hour out of your day to see this.

Image Courtesy of Coco Cottam