Writer: Nilgün Yusuf
Director: Renee Yeong
Nilgün Yusuf has created a dark, bloody, funny contemporary fable. It’s out of the Brothers Grimm mould where Cinderella’s step-sisters get bits of foot sliced off to fit into the glass slipper, rather than the sugary Disney version. It’s gory and graphic. It’s super realistic and symbol-filled. It takes a cool hard look at the Male Gaze and sticks a feminist finger right in its patriarchal eye.
Sage (engagingly played by Selma Alkaff) is an adolescent surfing the wave between girl and woman. She is living on Romney Marsh with her (unseen) artist mother, torn between the conflicting world views of her two besties, Danni (Ellie Uragallo) and Loukia (Larissa Ivy Pereira). Danni is an influencer, a toned, bronzed, brittle, depilated gym-bunny. Loukia is cool, calm, and hairy, and does not give the smallest stuff about anyone’s opinion of her appearance. Danni and Loukia vie for Sage’s company and her compliance. And the moon and supernatural visitations persuade Sage that only one of them is right.
The acting of all three women is deft, the barebones production in the stark black box of the Lion and Unicorn Theatre hits a lot of right notes and never makes the audience yearn for any extra set. The slides of a waxing moon deserve a more prominent, more consistent display, because the moon is an essential character, but when it’s there, it is glorious. But the heart of the play is Yusuf’s meditation on bleeding and womanhood. Rarely has the topic of menstruation been so artfully and thoroughly examined. Any squeamishness is confronted and dismissed. It isn’t a play with much time for light-weights.
For all its symbolism and werewolf references, Nine Moons is a serious consideration of body-positive tropes. The young women discuss the pressures on them to conform to smooth stereotypes. There is joy and liberation in their rejection of them, and there is well-placed criticism of the beauty industry and its coercive grip on impressionable people. Above all, when that grip is loosened, the trio has fun. The play concludes with celebration, albeit with sinister undertones. Nine Moons celebrates blood, but it doesn’t mind a bit of body horror to add savour.
Renee Yeong directs with delicacy, kicking in lively, dynamic scenes to vary with the basic set-up of two girls chatting on chairs. There isn’t enough visual variety in the stage picture; three girls in drab trackies are really all there is to look at, and the three are animated and lively and very expressive, but they could use some help. Integrating the background slide show with the stripped-back lighting would help; the moon appears and disappears from view, and its constant comforting presence would help. Like many bootstrap productions, there’s nothing that a bigger budget couldn’t help with.
Big ideas, bravura acting, and black box visuals – all go to making a trip to Kentish Town well worthwhile.
Runs until 31 October 2024.