Race Prep Isn't Much Fun

Saturdays mornings when we've got nothing on, you just can't beat them. A girl at your side, a dog at your feet. Well it would actually be nice if the dog got off his hairy rear-end, fetched the paper, and made the coffee but you can't have everything.

Eventually having exhausted L, I get up and fetch the paper myself and then take the not very useful canine on the park with his ball. The ball session has become a bit of a race against time because the ball has a slow puncture in it and is deflating all the time.

Get back and L is at Gym. Daughter and Son both out. So I listen to the latest slaughter dished out to Derby this time by Aston Villa. Derby play a defensive game and ride their luck, its 0-0 at half time. An injury forces a change of formation and we go on to lose 2-0.

We were supposed to be doing our usual cinema and meal tonight and L’s parents were supposed to be joining us but it’s cancelled at the last minute. Which is a shame, as even Son was up for joining us. He had rescheduled his Saturday night game with his friends so he could come. We were all feeling very honoured, although L admits she did pressurise him a bit.

Instead we go to the playhouse to see 'Beast on the Moon', because we had been emailed an offer of tickets for £5. It was just too good to turn down. As the play wasn’t costing us much we decide to go for a pre-theatre meal. It’s a cheap deal but the portions are very small. Most of the other diners have obviously done it before and know the form because they all order extra side portions, which we end up doing too. I’m on the orange juice, water, and coffee, as I again keep off the alcohol. This race prep isn't much fun.

The story is set in Milwaukee and concerns two survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Aram Tomasian has just picked up his wife Seta from the bus station. Aram is a photographer, the same as his father, a victim of the genocide, was. He has imported his wife from his homeland and has chosen her from a series of photos (early internet dating) but even then they’ve sent him the wrong one (shouldn't have gone to Amazon). Sita is not the girl in his photograph (but he didn't get too bad a deal. No matter he takes a new picture. This picture, together with his own photograph, takes its place on a sinister portrait which is resting on an easel at the back of the stage. The portrait is of Aram's butchered family. That picture and a stamp album is all that survives of his family, the sale of the stamps financed his emigration. He has removed the heads of his family from the portrait and instead has placed his and Sita’s heads there. The remaining headless family members are to be replaced by his own children, in a pledge to rebuild the family. Sita has been chosen to bear his children but she isn’t keen, cowering under the table when it's time to consummate the marriage. Eventually they get to it and we get the vocals of a lively sex scene, which L points out is wrong because Aram would have been a lousy lover. He was that type and in any case, for him it was not an act of passion, just a necessity to replace his family. Seta was also too timid to get passionate and is also haunted by the image of her sister being raped. It's all to no avail anyway, as Seta turns out to be barren.

After introducing the characters and setting up the situation, Act I is a little dull. The entire play is narrated by a character who, at first, adds little beyond explaining a bit of history to the audience. My eyes close occasionally but I get away with it until just before the break when L spots me almost toppling off the back of my seat. Things improve after half time when the narrator turns out to be the grown up version of a young orphan boy who Sita befriends. The narrator ruffles up his own hair, pulls his shirt out and plays him himself. He steals most of best scenes, as he scruffs up brilliantly as a teenager of today, although probably not the 1920's. Sita also has an excellent scene where she nails her doll to the easel, signifying her mother's crucifixion at the hands of the Turks. It's not just Aram who has a family to grieve. This, together with the effect the orphan boy has on them is the catalyst for the couple to move on, instead of clinging to the past. In the end, after a slow start, it was an excellent play. Unfortunately, the historic events that inspired it are still happening in the world today.

The title ‘Beast Of the Moon’ refers to the 1893 eclipse of the moon, when the Turks shot their guns at the "wild beast" in the sky that was covering the moon. Then, two years later, the Sultan, worried about a few upstart Armenians, declared a Jihad, and the Turks again shot their guns but this time not at the beast in the moon but at their neighbours, the Armenians.

Half a tinny at home, an energy bar and chocolate but no sex. L says I'll thank her for it tomorrow. Hmmm, not convinced. This race prep isn't much fun.