Blue Moon

If this doesn’t get Ethan Hawke some statuettes this coming winter, then I don’t know what will. He is on great form delivering a pithy series of monologues as if he really were the renowned lyricist Larry Hart. Most of this is told by way of his chat with his favourite barman “Eddie” (Bobby Cannavale) whilst he is waiting for the after show party for “Oklahoma!” to begin. He had famously worked with Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) for many a year, but this latter man had become tired of his booze-driven histrionics and so teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) for this latest offering. Now right from the start, I rather liked the enigmatic and flawed Hart. Not least because his critique on “Oklahoma!” is perfectly summed up by his description of an elephant marauding the corn fields of the USA getting poked in the eye by an ear. Just in case we do need some reminding of his previous successes, “Knuckles” (Jonah Lees), gently serenades us with some piano accompaniment as a few additional conversations with the likes of acclaimed writer EB White (Patrick Kennedy), his ambitious muse “Elizabeth” (Margaret Qualley) and, of course, with his erstwhile partner play out with varying degrees of honesty and/or self pity. I actually felt that though doubtless with just cause, it was Scott’s subtle yet devastatingly brutal effort as Rodgers that ensured that he actually came across as a rather unfeeling and ungrateful character as we all see the obvious despair on the face of an Hart who is struggling to deal with his isolation and his lack of relevance. How the mighty are falling. The dialogue is sharp and witty and the whole production shines quite a light on what it is to become yesterday’s man. There are allusions to his sexuality, but these are wrapped in a more sexually confused depiction of a man who felt that he could find beauty in man or woman, and again that ambiguity is well crafted by an Hawke who manages to combine our feelings of sympathy for his character with those of irritation. In many ways this looks like a cinema presentation of a theatrical enterprise, and is delivered in segments that could easily have been lifted directly from the stage, but in this case that structured form of scene-based storytelling seems all the more apposite and I really quite enjoyed this.