The Sad Story of the Moon and the Sun is a shadow puppet adventure. It tells the tale of how the two met, fell in love and learned the sad truth that perhaps they weren’t meant to be together. It sounds like it has the great makings of a children’s play, but I have to say both the audience and myself were underwhelmed.
The puppets themselves had a lovely whimsical quality about them. It was just a shame that we could hear the puppeteers awkwardly drop them and rummage through them in between each scene.
The production, brought up to the Fringe by Fourth Monkey Theatre Company, severely lacked energy. Sally, the show’s narrator, could have driven the story on with more force and with fewer lines slipped. The whole cast could have shown more commitment. There were instances where you would hear a solitary person try to create the soundscape of an ocean, even though I’m pretty sure there were at least four puppeteers hiding behind the screens onto which the images were projected.
I must give credit where credit’s due. The puppets themselves had a lovely whimsical quality about them. A great amount of detail had obviously gone into these and it paid off. It was just a shame that we could hear the puppeteers awkwardly drop them and rummage through them in between each scene. The writing quality of the narration matched the detail of the puppets. The story, which was based on a post found on DeviantArt.com, has been integrated with elements of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, which is a nice idea and the children in the audience fully appreciated it.
The production could have been a lot better but at least it’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
