Moon

Subtitled "an epic song of love," Moon tells the story of Diana and Sam. Diana is a lonely celestial body and has been orbiting Earth for eons, unconvinced that she will ever find anyone to love her. She longs for a companion and after countless hours spent crying into the ocean, eventually turns her attention to Sam. An ailing young man for whom Facebook is the only connection to the outside world, his bleak existence is interrupted when his admirer appears in his bedroom. The pair are intimate with each other, but the boy's health quickly takes a turn for the worse. The audience is given cause to wonder if the events described are really taking place or whether Sam is losing his grip on reality.

Award winning talent, The Australian Voices provide a capella vocals strong enough to do the fantastical nature of this tale justice. They sound appropriately grandiose when articulating the scale of both characters' sorrow and should be commended for this alone. Unfortunately we are given little respite from this approach and Moon ultimately suffers from its own bombast. New age sound bites such as “Diana sends out her beams,” are repeated over and over, each word milked for maximum dramatic effect until the original phrase seems laughable. Likewise, lines that address the mundane nature of Sam's existence seem unintentionally portentous when given this treatment.

Though it is certainly worth turning up to marvel at the vocal acrobatics on display throughout Moon, anyone anticipating a solid, well communicated narrative need look elsewhere.

http://www.theaustralianvoices.com