Jul 16
seen from Israel
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Iraq
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Ecuador
seen from Sweden
seen from Bangladesh
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Australia
seen from Russia
seen from Kuwait
seen from United States
seen from Bolivia
seen from United States
Two friends share a meal, debate the meaning of existence, and quietly reveal that there may be no single right way to live.
What We Did Before Our Moth Days
WHAT WE DID BEFORE OUR MOTH DAYS by Wallace Shawn, directed by Andre Gregory: This is a very demanding play. People left at both intermissions. It was their loss, because it’s also a very rewarding play. I normally object to works I consider more storytelling than drama, but Shawn’s four-hander, written primarily as a series of monologs, combines rich writing with peerless performances. I’m still unpacking all of this, so my companions for the night, Shane Grant and Joan Lipkin, can fill in their impressions.
Four actors sit in front of a wall with three large arched windows that can change color and reveal an image of large, animated moths in flight. The moth days of the title are the days on which a person dies; one character envisions moths coming to fly his spirit away. It opens with Tim (John Early) telling of the night he learned of his father’s (Josh Hamilton) death. Until the third act, the play principally deals with the events leading to the man’s heart failure at the age of 45 — a marriage to his high-school sweetheart (Maria Dizzia), success moving them apart as each becomes consumed with their own work and his eventual taking of a mistress (Hope Davis). But later we learn that they’re all dead, all looking back on what they did before the moths came.
The play deals with a lot: perceptions of time, male and female approaches to careers and sex, self-destructive behavior, dealing with personal limitations. The list could go on. Yet the language is so rich and so expertly delivered you can get swept up in it. It’s seductive. The staging is incredibly simple. The only big movements are the characters’ entering and exiting, though the way each physicalizes their long speeches also adds to the visual element (in that Hamilton and Davis are particularly strong). Yet, even here, Gregory’s direction makes a point. After describing her visit to Hamilton’s apartment right after his death, when she finally meets his wife and son, Davis leaves the stage, not to return until Act Two, when Hamilton describes meeting her. There is one dialog, when Early goes to visit Davis after his father’s death, and one monolog during which Davis reacts to Hamilton’s description of her. It’s really a two-person scene with one partner silent, which is what most monologs should be (even if you’re talking to the audience, and here endeth your lesson for the day).
This is all expertly performed. It’s a great exercise in both physicalization and personalization. The actors bring to life the people they describe, including the prostitute with whom Tim had sad sex while learning of his father’s death, the man Dizzia was tempted to have an affair with and the younger writer who becomes Hamilton’s best friend. And there is humor in keeping with Shawn’s wicked wit. The characters joke, even in talking about death, and reveal their own inconsistencies, often with self-deprecating awareness. When Early, an alcoholic, visits Davis, she says his father has told her all about him while filling his wine glass to the brim. That’s all very Chekhovian, which seems fitting for a playwright who was the best Vanya I’ve ever seen, directed by Gregory.
Amazing cast
My Dinner with Andre (1981, Louis Malle)
12/6/25
