by Sam Shepard
Byron and Ames are old friends, re-united by mutual desperation. Over bourbon on ice, they sit, reflect and bicker until fifty years of love, friendship and rivalry are put to the test at the barrel of a gun.
Following our sell-out productions of Fool for Love, Kicking a Dead Horse and True West, we are delighted to further our relationship with Sam Shepard by presenting the world premiere of his new play Ages of the Moon.
Written specially for leading Irish actors Seán McGinley and Stephen Rea, Ages of the Moon is a gruffly poignant and darkly funny play.
REVIEWS: WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
See all reviewsShooting the breeze becomes a dangerous pastime in Sam Shepard’s new play, as a trigger-happy loner takes pot shots at anything that gets on his nerves. In his second commission from Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, Shepard steers clear of the mythic western territory of his last play, Kicking a Dead Horse. Here, as two buddies in late middle-age are reunited after many years, plain speaking is the desired accompaniment to their whiskey shots. For Stephen Rea’s Ames, holed up in the middle of a sun-baked nowhere, “a tree is a tree”. “I’m not used to something meaning something else,” he declares heavily, squashing the more metaphorical tendencies of Sean McGinley’s Byron.
Combining the work of one of America’s foremost playwright’s with the premier league of Irish acting talent has ‘must see’ written all over it. Ages Of The Moon is one of those theatrical endeavours that comes along every so often. How often have we reflected on our lives, wishing we were young again, and so recreate situations that seek to alter the timeline of our existence?
Early on in Sam Shepard’s new play, one of the two characters announces a discomfort with metaphor. “I’m not used to that,” says Seán McGinley’s Byron, in a chewed-up drawl. “Something meaning something else. I’m used to things being what they are.” Where Byron stands on Romantic poetry or literary allusion we can only guess, but his words here serve as a sly, self-reflexive joke.
The last Sam Shepard play commissioned by the Abbey featured Stephen Rea in a hole with a dead horse.
In this one, he’s still in a hole, but he has Sean McGinley for company.
Byron (McGinley) has crossed several western states by Greyhound bus to be with his old friend Ames (Rea), who’s having an emotional crisis brought on after busting up with his woman. They sit on Ames’ porch, drink bourbon and wait for a total eclipse of the moon, due at 5am.
The great charm of Shepard’s writing is its allusiveness and delicacy in spare, man-eat-man situations.
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