Ruby Moon

‘Ruby Moon’ is a beautifully structured play, which was written in 2003 by Australian Matt Cameron, and short-listed for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. The playwright was only 34 at the time, yet the play shows such maturity and depth of parental feeling. It is being presented by Always Working Artists and Deckchair Theatre, at the Deckchair Theatre, Victoria Hall, 179 High Street, Fremantle until the 30^th October. Evening shows at 8.00 pm. With matinees on Wednesday 27^th at 11.00 am and Saturday 30^th at 2.00 pm. 80 riveting minutes with no interval.

      Young father, Ray Moon (Benj D’Addario) staggers through the front door, clutching a broken umbrella and soaked to the skin. He goes to kiss his wife Sylvie (Kate Rice) but yet again he is spurned. She is not in the mood, in fact since their 10-year-old daughter, Ruby, set off to see her Grandma in Flaming Tree Grove - never to be seen again – Sylvie has naturally been very depressed.

       As in any tragic happening like this, typically the neighbours, friends and family will rally around with support, but sadly for Ray and Sylvie this is not a typical street and the characters living there seem to have their own agendas. The parents visit each person in the street, desperately trying to claw out any tiny clue as to Ruby’s whereabouts, learning as they go that perhaps they don’t know their daughter as well as they thought they did.

Director Jeremy Rice hasn’t wasted a scrap of the evocative plot; he has gathered an excellent team of techies to bring memorable life to this creepy play. Filled with imagination set designer, Fiona Bruce, has created a simple yet effective home, boudoir, a dark street and a most inventive is the use of the hall’s main entrance. The lighting is notoriously difficult to get accurate in the Victoria Hall, but lighting designer, Joseph Mercurio, has still managed to get the scotopic, shimmering lighting with a perfect choice of gel colour and lamp angle. When it comes to sound, Joe Lui always comes up with an amazing mix of music and sound effects. His sound track is quadraphonic, powerful, explosive then so subtle that you are not sure whether you are really hearing the groaning noises or not. A difficult topic handled with feeling.

On her disappearance, little blonde Ruby was wearing a scarlet spotted dress, and Cherie Hewson has carried this theme through each scene as a constant reminder that the child is forever in Ray and Sylvie’s mind.

This is a truly horrendous subject, one we would all dread happening to one of our children, yet without over dramatising the whole situation; Matt Cameron has given us a multiple layers of chilling but yet palatable script. This is not a play of ‘oozing sentimentality’, more of a thrilling ‘whodunnit’ nature as the distraught parents systematically trace back Ruby’s movements.

Thanks to quick, but very well designed costume changes, all of the parts are played by Benj and Kate, with a small cameo by Kalliope or Angourie Rice. Kalliope means ‘beautiful voice’ and indeed Kate was ‘dubbed’ by her daughter and sang the original song, composed by Andrew McNaughton, delightfully.

There are a very small number of actors whose plays one can lucidly recall, Benj is one of these. He never seems to take the easy option and in this show portrays several very different characters so convincingly that it is hard to believe it is the same performer. Likewise Kate was amazing as she depicted a huge age range. What a talented clan the Rice family are, but you can see from the immense planning and talented team work they deserve their acclamation.

I recently re-watched Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar in the sixties film of John Fowles’s first book, ‘The Collector’, similarly chilling and subtly terrifying.

This is one of these rare plays with the WOW factor. Every aspect of the production succeeds. It is not a misery-producing production, indeed parts are darkly humorous.

Strongly recommended, in fact don’t miss it, memorable true quality.