The Far Side of the Moon is a play written and directed by Robert Lepage, starring Yves Jacques.
Plot:
The two brothers André (Yves Jacques) and Philippe (Yves Jacques) struggle with the recent death of their mother. Philippe, a unsuccessful PhD student, is obsessed with mankind’s discovery of outer space and Commander Leonov, the first person to walk in space. His relationship with successful weatherman André is strained, to say the least. While Philippe tries to get his career on track, he seems to find more meaning in a competition to compose a message for extraterrestial contact.
The Far Side of the Moon is again an excellent play by Robert Lepage. It has wonderful visuals and good characters. Unfortunately it had about 100°C in the theater and no oxygen whatsoever, so it was a little hard to enjoy it as much as I did his other plays.
As usual, Lepage proves himself a master of the stage. His play is full with clever (multimedia) stage work: a mirror creates zero gravity, a washing machine turns into a space shuttle and with a few props and a black wall, we move through different appartments. Especially the zero gravity part impressed me a lot. So simple and yet so effective.
And then there’s this little space dude, puppeteered by Éric Leblanc, which is cuteness personified. Can I have one? Pretty please?
The space race and the story of the two brothers went together nicely, even though the play generally didn’t resonate as much with me as the previous two by Lepage I saw (The Andersen Project and Lipsynch). Maybe because it wasn’t as funny, maybe because it was too hot in the theater and doing anything but staying alive and awake was too much of an effort.
Yves Jacques was brilliant again. I can understand why Lepage casts him over and over again. It is truly amazing how he can portray a relationship that well on his own.
The Far Side of the Moon was also adapted into a film I really want to see now. I’m not sure how well it translates away from the stage. But I guess I’ll find out.
Summarising: Excellent.
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