While insubstantial, this immersive online performance gathers people virtually until they can get together more safely in person.
A quirk of astronomy: The phases of the moon appear the same no matter where you stand on Earth. If it’s gibbous in Greenland, it’s gibbous in Argentina; a crescent is a crescent from New Zealand to Uzbekistan. As I write this, a new moon approaches, and all over the world stars shine brighter now. Over the past year and a half, there have been fewer opportunities to watch the same thing at the same time in person, so what a miracle that if any of us were to stand outside, we might, for a moment, see the same bright thing.
“Return the Moon,” an immersive online performance from Third Rail Projects, also tries to offer community in the midst of isolation. Though insubstantial — it’s a dandelion of a show — the piece speaks to this liminal moment that seems as though it might soon disappear as theaters reopen. It explores how we sustain ourselves, and one another, when the power goes out.
A fairy tale, an act of collective creation and, as Third Rail describes it, “an offering, for dark nights,” “Return the Moon” begins in the most mundane place imaginable: a Zoom waiting room. After a brisk introduction, viewers are sorted into four breakout rooms. Mine was led, warmly and nimbly, by Tara O’Con. We adjusted our lighting, and were told to look out any available window — windows as far away from me as Baltimore and Toronto — and type what we could see into the chat. Then, with our cameras off and our names elided, we were asked to type in our fears and desires.
“What we are doing tonight is attempting to make something together,” O’Con said, “to share something together.”
Then comes the tale, a thin allegory about what happens to a village when the moon disappears. What’s richer is a subsequent dance, presented in four separate windows to a soundtrack of tinkling piano. Because a laptop camera works better in close-up, these are dances for fingers, hands, heads, an eyeball, a cup. The evening concludes with blessings and a tribute, based on those earlier chat responses; on the night I attended, we collectively gave thanks for, among other things, dolls, gay bars, bus terminals at night and being invited to play Street Fighter 2.
Because this is a generous piece, the performance doesn’t quite end there. Online, an audio file arrives a few days later. And offline, a slim envelope lands in your mailbox, with a gift inside and instructions for how to make your own offering.
The creators — O’Con, along with Alberto Denis, Kristin Dwyer, Joshua Gonzales, Sean Hagerty, Justin Lynch, Zach Morris, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus and Edward Rice — seem to have learned from earlier online experiments. The piece is short, not much more than an hour, and while it depends on enough audience participation to keep viewers engaged, that participation is comfortable, with anonymity guaranteed. And who doesn’t love a gift in the mail? Yet while “Return the Moon” is purpose-built for a remote audience on Zoom, it also has the feeling of a place-holder: a way of gathering apart until we can more safely gather together.
Third Rail’s long-running, immersive “Then She Fell” was an early pandemic casualty. “Return the Moon” is in every way a slighter piece, but it is a gentle one, made with kindness and care. And it provides the useful reminder, necessary as theaters struggle to regroup and reopen, that even a sliver of moon can cast a light.
Return the Moon
Through Sept. 30; thirdrailprojects.com. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes.
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Review: In ‘Return the Moon,’ Theater Between Phases - The New York Times
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