Written by Martin Travers

Directed by Rosalind Sydney

Review by Dominic Corr

Tour Dates and Tickets

Surrounded by sickness, poverty and iron-clad virtue, Nancy Gibb’s head is bursting with hopes and dreams, illuminated by the lights and glitz of performance, manifested live on stage as the young girl dips in and out of reality to escape the world surrounding her. Wasting away, choking, crippled, and on the verge of desperation, Chiara Sparkes’s Nancy seeks an escape – transfixed by the world of the cinema, looking to stardom to outrun the encroaching brutality of her arranged marriage to the local farmer, George. But this dash into the night could have further consequences than Nancy realises for her mother, grandmother, and most of all, her little half-sister, as Nancy bids a farewell in So Long, Wee Moon.

A departure from the more supernatural nature of Braw Clan’s piece, Secrets Wrapped in Lead, playwrightMartin Travers reminds audiences with this new piece that there are more fears and trauma to be had in the realms of the living than any spectre or tannasg can conjure from the spirit world. Like so many cultures, family is at the heart of Scottish communal life – particularly within the countryside, where the transition of generational properties, jobs, and lands maintains the only wealth a family may possess.

From introduction to conclusion, Sparke’s performance is heart-wrenching in authenticity and sincerity. A young woman with promise and hopes and a head spiralling with naïve dreams tossed and trundled around in their life. The fragility and constant ‘edge’ on which Sparkes places their performance is critical to the role – always one step from utter collapse: Scotland’s very own Blanche DuBois.

With her ailing Grandmother’s death-throws from the other room (a cameo from Fletcher Mathers) or her mother’s needle-like comments and actions from all angles, Jessica Brettle’s compact stage is effective and practical – just shy of choking. Performed as a jutting Traverse style for the Arts At Loaningdale’s audience, the flooding stage lights from Paul Rodger’s lighting emulate Nancy’s showbiz desires, as well as disorientates us alongside Pippa Murphy’ssound design to tease at the truth of Nancy’s adventures outside of Clydeside, the script offering a bit too many hints and questions as to what happened without providing a fuller explanation, or time to settle.

A terrifying force on stage, Helen McAlpine is a fragile but ferocious Annie, the girls’ mother, who channels desperation into the role, which becomes entirely tangible – monstrous and cruel – and tragically, wholly familiar for some. There’s a method to the brutality that Gibb nails under Sydney’s direction in a manner which never redeems the role but offers glimmers of the difficulties and dire life she has had that has hardened and sharpened her heart. Morven Blackadder’s Wee Moon is the antithesis, her flecks of starlight blossoming in a stagnant pool. The whole cast represents generations of working-class women constricted by a world out of their control – Wee Moon is the first in a generation where there’s a hope for things to change, and Blackadder’s wide-eyed enthusiasm captures both the curiosity in adventure, but the anguish of knowing precisely what is going to happen.

A bitter-sweet love letter to the women of vaudeville and variety who dared to dream but often found themselves in unjust and abused conditions, So Long, Wee Moon is as much a tribute to communal theatre performances and those women whose dreams never got beyond the boundaries of their towns and villages. Compact, dramatic, and with just enough flair of the eccentric and richly constructed with language at its core, Traver’s latest work is another firm reminder of Braw Clan Theatre’s reputation as a vital creative house in a representation of our language, communities, and theatre formed outside of the major cities.

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