NPX Weekly Round-Up: Man and Moon by Siena Ledger
A beautiful piece that grapples with life and death in a somehow comforting way, plus three other plays I'm excited about!
When looking for a piece to review this week, I searched through my extensive Google drive of downloaded plays from NPX for the perfect candidate. I wasn’t sure what constituted perfection, but I felt I’d know it when I saw it. Something about Man and Moon by Siena Ledger felt right to me, so I clicked open the file and began to read without reminding myself of the premise.
Somehow, it was exactly what I needed to read this week.
Here is the summary of Man and Moon from NPX:
Aaron is a transitioning man, and Luna is a 12-year-old girl with a deep passion for outer space. Together in the lobby of an Oncology Unit, they learn how to wait as they navigate their changing bodies and circumstances within the expanse; this is a story of friendship.
I love this summary— I think it tells you just as much as you need to know before reading. We have our two characters, Aaron and Luna, and the one place they always meet: the Oncology Unit. The perfect setting for a drama of Aristotelian proportions, if Aristotle didn’t mind the playwright screwing with his Unity of Time. But I’ve never been one to hold to the Unities, so I digress.
What really stood out to me about this play was the deep connection between the characters that became evident within the first ten pages. Ledger does a phenomenal job of creating a believable and touching relationship between Aaron, a 28 year old trans man, and Luna, an almost-13 year old girl obsessed with space. The genuine care that the two begin to feel and express to each other is what truly drives the narrative forward. This story isn’t about a problem being solved, or even about someone dying from cancer. It’s about friendship, how it can develop even in the most unlikely places, and the absolute necessity it is towards fulfillment.
Reading this play has given me another great example of how to create believable and deeply emotional relationships on the page, relationships that I can see actors stepping into and breathing life into as easily as they, well, breathe. Dialogue is key here, but not just what the characters say and how they say it— but the spaces between the words. Ledger uses space expertly in this play, reminding me that sometimes it is just as important to know when to write dialogue as it is to write beautiful dialogue. I feel like when I was in graduate school, my teachers were always telling me to consider silence and what it can do for a play. I forget sometimes that they were right. This play showed me however that silence is not just about pacing— it’s also about building on page/stage emotion and tension in all the right ways. It’s an instrument we as playwrights need to learn how to play expertly.
Here is my official review on NPX:
A gorgeous piece exploring change, loss, grief, and death through the eyes of two people who have experienced so much hurt and yet still hold so much hope. What an unlikely and yet perfect pairing these two characters make-- they are so different and yet their differing experiences are what make the similar ones all the more significant. MAN AND MOON feels like when you fell asleep in the car as a child and your parent carried you to bed. Necessary reading for anyone coping with big life changes.
Highly recommend this one!
What else am I interested in this week? Three plays I’m itching to read:
Another Goddamn Dystopian Play by J. Chavez
You Enter the Tavern by Aly Kantor
The Picasso Affair by Iyna Caruso
These three will definitely become their own posts eventually! Do you have any plays you want to read, but not sure you want to take the time without knowing if it’ll be worth it? Let me know, and I’ll happily review it!
Have a great week!
Brynn