“MOONCHILDREN”
By
Michael Weller
Rights:
Theatre Communications Group
355 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10017-0217
Please note: “Particular emphasis is placed on
the readings and all uses of these plays by educational institutions,
permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: The Joyce Ketay Agency,
1501 Broadway, Suite 1908, New York. New York
10036,
212-354—6825.”
Cast: 16 characters (8 of which are college age)
13 males, 3 females
“Imagine a group of people who, for
one reason or another are compelled to make a journey by foot across a desert
strewn with patches of quicksand. Aware of the nature of the danger, but not of
its several locations, they have evolved prior to the journey, a pattern of
travel, a set of warning signals, a complex shorthand to alert each other of
possible danger ahead.
I picture this play, then, as their
journey across the desert. We don't know the signals. We don't know the danger.
All we see is a group of people each spaced apart from the other in a
particular way, walking across a seemingly harmless stretch of sand. They make
peculiar detours. They signal each other in curious ways. They laugh and joke
to pass the time. They come closer together or drift away from each other, forming
new patterns according to necessities we don't understand. And in the end, we
know about them only what we've learned from their behavior along the way.”-
Playwright Michael Weller from his introduction to “Moonchildren.”
MOONCHILDREN takes place in 1965, the era of grass, free
love, civil unrest and the war in Vietnam, but, basically, it is about kids
graduating from college, not knowing what lies ahead. Michael Weller dubs
MOONCHILDREN a comedy, but the humor is a protective mechanism endemic to youth.
In a vain attempt to maintain equanimity, it is the device used to cope with
uncertainty and fear by youngsters about to be born to adulthood. Some will be
“born” to continuing education, others to jobs and yet others to war and
disability or death. I guess that is why Michael Weller envisions MOONCHILDREN
as a “journey across the desert” pocked by pools of quicksand. I do not know
why he named the play “Moonchildren,” unless he is making an analogy between
the evanescence of youth and Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year,
but, in any case, the young people in this play are the same as every
“graduate” compelled to vacate childhood and move on.
“…there are moments when the spirit palls and the resolute
good humor stretches thin. Drunk once more, you stumble home alone to wrest
yourself to sleep in an unmade, comfortless bed. And the party's almost over
and whadaya got to show? The one-liners have long since faded. And after one or
two bravura letters, the friendships fade as well. So what then's left to do
short of shuffling through Senior Yearbook for the next 2000 years? Let's face
it. College is pretty much a shuck. A holding action with a seductive glow that
hasn't even the half-life of a burning match.”-“The Harvard Crimson”- Gregg J.
Kilday, May 12, 1972
Although the themes in MOONCHILDREN are universal, the patina
of each generation is unique. In 1965, America was suffering growing pains in
common with its youth. Idealism, maturity and reality were on a crash course.
Fundamental changes were taking place, resulting in unrest, anxiety and
cynicism. Faced with such unpleasant, inexorable dynamics, the students in
MOONCHILDREN develop strategies by which to flourish. Unfortunately, those
strategies result in isolation and misunderstanding.
MOONCHILDREN sneaks up on its audience. It
unfolds in a seemingly happy, haphazard way. It is wry and goofy, irreverent
and unpredictable, embodied by the comic style of Christopher Guest, one of
it’s original stars. In that respect, the show is enjoyable, particularly to a
young audience. However, the dialogue is a dodge. Rather than miscommunication,
it is “discommunication,”
unconsciously fashioned to avoid issues. It is the offspring of confusion,
concern and lack of trust. It is passive avoidance, an effort to be a small
target. It is pretence of ennui, so as to appear disinterested, content. It is
the mind-numbing flurry of the “put-on,” grasping for the power to manipulate.
Ultimately, though, the dialogue is the language of the
lonely, and that is why it is so valuable to a young audience. They see
themselves in this dramatization. Somehow, Michael Weller's words illuminate
what is not spoken, and that
illumination is a pervasively descriptive characterization of the human
condition in its tender years. Thus, MOONCHILDREN is a mirror, a tonic, a balm,
notwithstanding its final brush with melancholy. In its reflection, children
better understand themselves, and that is how this play is most beneficial. It
shows kids that they are connected by a universal “disconnect” which all of
them wish to bridge, and, in the best case, MOONCHILDREN does just that.