Four women, four generations, one extended family and Belfast’s Tiger’s Bay make for a poignant, pointed portrait of female life in the machismo shadows of shipyards, two world wars and the Troubles in Alice Malseed’s The Half Moon at the Lyric Theatre.
First seen in 2022, this short run, serving as a warm-up for the Edinburgh Fringe, feels tighter than before, Ruby Campbell’s commanding solo performance more attuned and nuanced to the writing’s turn-on-a-sixpence switches of time and character.
Drawn from Malseed’s two-year-long spell as writer-in-residence in the staunchly localist enclave, it’s a deftly conceived and executed piece, vividly rooted in its specificity even as the localised experiences it describes quietly bloom into something recognisably more universal.
The Half Moon blends the tropes of generational dramas with the equally familiar motifs of life in Northern Ireland during its recently violent history, not least the constant struggle between fight and flight in what for too long has been an environment fraught with difficulties and dangers.
If Malseed occasionally errs on the side of sentimentality, a nostalgic impulse that too often betrays older and more experienced writers, she is sure and certain on the experience of women in a society that relegates them for reasons of religion, class or gender. That she provides shards of hope and optimism amidst, despite, it all elevates The Half Moon above the merely domestic.
She is very well served by Campbell in a performance that marries physicality and stillness with subtlety and exuberance to wholly engaging effect. And by Emily Foran’s discretely choreographed direction and Paula O'Reilly's movement on Pai Rathaya’s minimalist but adaptable set, beautifully lit by Alan Mooney and haloed by Stuart Robinson’s eloquent ambient soundtrack.
The Half Moon is a class act and a fine example of the emerging generation of new Northern Irish writers and actors that look set to travel well and far outside of the region. It will run at the Pleasance, Edinburgh from August 2–28.