REVIEW: The Moth at Newcastle Live Theatre

The Moth

Newcastle Live Theatre

Until Saturday 15 March 2025 and then on tour

Written by Paul Herzberg

Directed by Jake Murray

Durham based Elysium Theatre Company have established themselves as the producers of challenging, thought proving work and this continues with their latest production. Written by South African-born British playwright and actor Paul Herzberg, The Moth lets the words influence the audience.

Faz Singhateh opens the show, as a journalist and Cambridge educated writer John Josana, with a monologue about leaving Africa in 1976 - at the age of one - as his father was in search of a better safer life. Via East Germany the pair end up in the United Kingdom. There are a number of issues here that are unpacked: ranging from the evolution of racism as something that was bold and in your face to something more insidious - through to the fact his mother did not follow them.

In the mid-90s John is taking a busy train south from Edinburgh to King's Cross (though looking at the footage in the background the train has clearly had a diversion via the Tyne Valley line). As chance has it, the person who sits opposite him is Afrikaan/Boer Marius. Micky Cochrane appears as the man whose Dad moved to Germany in the 1930s and joined the SS. His Dad was deployed, and detained, in Africa resulting in Marius being raised in South Africa and eventually joining the army, with deployment in Angola.

Thus two men with very different views are sharing a table for a long journey. This gives the writer the opportunity to draw parallels between the actions of the German Nazis with that of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Is redemption possible from a victim scarred by a system set up to oppress them?

Both men are products of their upbringing and have as many issues from their childhood to add to the mix in a show that is effectively a two-handed show which relies heavily on the stage presence and personability of the two characters. The setting on stage is Shakespearean in its simplicity - a couple of chairs and a table - with the modern addition of a large screen for images. This leaves the audience to concentrate on the arguments and prejudices. The decision to do this creates the power for the show. It is a tough watch, but thoroughly worthwhile thanks to the stage craft of Faz Singhateh and Micky Cochrane. 

My companion and I left the theatre chewing over the posed and concluded that this is a production that leaves the audience with plenty of food for thought.

Review: Stephen Oliver

North East dates on the tour: 

14 -15 March – Live Theatre, Newcastle

19 March – Hullabaloo Space, the Hippodrome, Darlington

21 March – St Thomas Church Hall, Stanhope 

26 March – The Witham, Barnard Castle

27 March – East Stanley Working Man’s Club, Stanley

28 -29 March – Alnwick Playhouse

2 April – Hull Truck, Hull

3 April – Stokesley Community Library

4 April – Bishop Auckland Town Hall 

8 April – The Athenaeum, Sunderland

9 April – the Friarage Theatre, Yarm

Tickets:

Tickets are available from https://elysiumtc.co.uk/2024/11/25/the-moth/

For more information on Elysium and its productions, find them on social media at @ElysiumTC or head to www.elysiumtc.co.uk