SOLEMN MASS FOR A FULL MOON IN SUMMER [2000]

Edinburgh / London                                                                                 writer Michel Tremblay

dir Philip Howard & Ros Steen / Traverse Theatre, Barbican BITE:00

This translation from Michel Tremblay's Quebecois into Scots by Martin Bowman and Bill Findlay is a secular mass played out on a large static set of terraced balconies by designer Neil Warmington. Each scene is a specific part of the mass, given its own musical tempo indication.

The introit is based on the call and response of Gaelic psalm-singing where the precentor leads the congregation line by line.  The characters enter silently and, looking at the moon out front, wait to speak for many beats after the music has ended: “They seem to be waiting for something. The silence before the ceremony must be heavy, almost oppressive”.

The offertory is a dance, a “tango played on an organ”, with no dialogue. Choreographed by Struan Leslie, two of the characters Yvon and Gérard “are rejuvenated and transformed” until Yvon finally breaks down, sobbing, underscored by the bass clarinet.