Actors Aidan Quinn and Steve Buscemi read Ages of the Moon by Sam Shepard, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, 20 October, 2024
Review: Aidan Quinn & Steve Buscemi in Love at First Sight
HANNA NIELSON
Discussed with spoilers. CW: grief
On Sunday night, I was in Dublin to see Love at First Sight, a new play reading series and brain child of Abbey Theatre director, Caitríona McLaughlin. The premise is to invite established actors to choose a script with a part they've always wanted to play but never had the chance. The result is a one time only performance, where an actor's instincts have free reign.
Irish-American actor Aidan Quinn chose to read Ages of the Moon by Sam Shepard, joined on stage by his longtime friend, the American actor-writer-director Steve Buscemi. I was fascinated by the premise because actors rarely get the chance to play what they truly want. As a profession, it's a constant compromise with an actor's instincts and – well, everything else.
I should note that I know the playwright's sister, Roxanne. She hoped to introduce us in the early 2010s, however the timing was never right. He sadly passed in 2017.
A review or critical analysis can only truly reflect the perspective of the writer, in my opinion. So it bears mentioning, my perspective includes being an actor, on stage and on camera, as well as working behind the scenes. And a writer, I've written plays and screenplays, and worked as story editor. As a director, I've had to cast actors; and I've also been the actor in auditions, flubbing the whole thing.
When I see a performance, I can't help listening and reacting like an actor in the scene. I get swept up in the flow without a filter. For anyone that doesn't get swept up: What's it like? Is it like walking through a storm and never feeling a single raindrop?
Never mind. Let's set the stage...
Before the performance, director Caitríona McLaughlin and actor Aidan Quinn came out to say a few words to the audience. McLaughlin introduced the concept behind the reading series. The choice of Ages of the Moon was Quinn's, and it has strong roots with the Abbey. The world premiere happened on this very stage in 2009; and the play was written specifically for actors Stephen Rae and Sean McGinley (who was in attendance).
Quinn described first seeing the play on tour in New York, 2010, where he briefly met the playwright. At final curtain, his wife punched him in the arm and said he should play that part when he was older. The idea lingered and he welcomed the opportunity to join McLaughlin's project. He and his friend, actor Steve Buscemi, had a few hours earlier that afternoon to read through the script and rehearse. McLaughlin intended the reading to showcase an actor's process, taking risks and feeling their way into a part, rather than presenting a finished performance.
The play demands a lot from the dual leads, reunited old friends reminiscing over past adventures and lost chances. By turns contentious, ludicrous, and intimate, there is no escaping one another. The text is darkly funny, and as sparse as a Beckett play. The realism in the dialogue feels like eavesdropping on real life: the misremembering, corrections, additions, flights of fantasy.
Focused on the sorry tale of main character Ames and the breakdown of his marriage, the play lulls you into the familiar territory of a comedic duo. When the action breaks out, it's surprisingly intense and bizarrely violent. Peeling back layers, each man is revealed with unflinching rawness and vulnerability. There is an overall theme of judgment and forgiveness – of one's own failings; the push-pull of another's foibles and absurdities; the love we expect versus the love we receive.
Ultimately it is about the triumph of friendship, how it holds us together no matter how different or how broken we are. As Thomas Merton wrote in No Man Is an Island, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
...Okay, ladies and inclusive others, let's get one thing out of the way. Yes, Aidan Quinn's blue eyes are just as striking in person as on screen. Likewise the charisma, the brooding intensity. I don't want to objectify anyone, but I had front row seats. I was not disappointed.
And for fans of Steve Buscemi: I don't want to objectify him either, but he really is just that cool in person. A walking masterclass in acting. He made it seem like he was born reading this play. Maybe he did break a sweat or make a mistake, but he's so cool I didn't notice.
(The cool factor in this pair was immense, and hopefully more directors will make use of it.)
As the reading began, an on-stage narrator described the scenery and actions, while the actors delivered a witty back and forth. The responsive audience enjoyed every bit, and the laughter was infectious. For the first few minutes, it felt somewhat like the playwright dominating with brilliant word play, while the actors were just keeping up. Then, imperceptibly, a subtle shift.
The actors began to listen more deeply to one another. Relaxed. Allowed the characters of Ames and Byron to come more fully to life. It's hard to use words other than 'magic' when talking about acting, as though what happens on a stage is inherently otherworldly. Nevertheless, another element came into being; it was no longer just Aidan and Steve reading aloud a play. A conjuring had taken place. Energy flowed. A portal opened, revealing the world of the play.
Having done dramatic readings as an actor, I have experienced that shift. A magical (sorry!) point of transition from simply being yourself, awkwardly aware of the audience, with nothing but a script in your hands. No props or actions to give you something to do; no costumes or scenery to create the semblance of time, place, atmosphere. Just yourself. And your hands are shaking, because of course they are.
It feels at first like it's only the dialogue holding the audience's interest. But then something changes. You look at your scene partner. Something invisible knits you together. An ephemeral thing called 'chemistry' descends, filling in the soft emptiness. Instead of rows of seats and unfamiliar faces, there's a sky full of stars and the warmth of a summer night. You feel it. You're there, in that place that exists nowhere really – just in the shared minds around you. And the characters come home, settling in for a spell.
I found myself riveted as the chemistry flowed on stage: Aidan's bristling, barely contained energy and Steve's unflappable, quippy coolness.
The stage was empty apart from two chairs, two actors, and a script. But as Quinn and Buscemi found their stride, the unseen arose to accompany them: the old dusty porch, sprawling fields, and the moon – rising somewhere above us. Just beyond my shoulder, perhaps.
As Carl Jung once said, “The symbol of the thing is the thing itself.”
That is part of the alchemy of art. To make the cosmic tangible, the godlike more human.
Unlocking our imaginations, providing unexpected revelations. Opportunities for emotional experience often denied to us in life. Yet it's also a safe space. Unlike real pain and trauma, a symbol can be taken up or put down, visited or set aside for another time. The emotions are contained, given a limited time and place – the duration of a song, the length of a chapter.
Ames as a symbolic character comes closest to a trickster figure. I was reminded of Native American myths about the archetypal figure of Coyote – similarly led by hedonistic impulses into ruin, with humourous or tragic results. At times defensive, blaming others, and then heaping coals on his head, Ames is both ridiculousness and heartbreaking. Eaten up by the darkness of his failings. The lost friendships and relationships, the too-little-too-late attempts to save them, and the mystery of why we sometimes sabotage that which we need most.
He is a difficult character, not noble and not trying to be, requiring a nuanced portrayal (which Quinn manages) to keep his heartbreak believable in spite of the tragi-comic humour. In moments, he circles and almost reveals the truth of his pain. To avoid it, he leaps at any distraction – another bottle of bourbon, a malfunctioning fan, even his best friend. The more he dodges and avoids his truth, the more damage he inflicts.
As a symbol he reflects perhaps the worst of our wounded selves. The feral child, the wild man; the part that most needs to be understood and healed.
The paradox of healing is that to get beyond our pain, we must first face it. The wreckage of our hearts. But what's to stop us being overwhelmed, flailing and alone, lost in the floods of emotion?
Within the frame of a painting, the words of a poem, or a scene in a film, we can safely peer into the mirror of pain. Discovering we are not alone. In other times, other places, people different from us still felt the same. There is great power in that.
Throughout ages, theatre has provided an important communal experience of emotion, contained within the safety of time, place, and company. As a species hardwired to survive in groups, our nervous systems recalibrate to match others around us. If the group is calm and accepting, that feeling is mirrored within us. Likewise, when we are physically present with others, sharing an experience, our heartbeats and breathing rates begin to sync.
So the physiological effect of an actor, physically present in the room, bringing an emotion to life, means we are more than just witnesses. But the witnessing is also important: seeing someone be vulnerable and supported by fellow actors, accepted by the audience.
This play, however much it is couched in humour and caustic wit, centres on grief – for the loss of romantic love, as well as the loss of identity that partnership provides. In Ames's case, it happens through his own selfish philandering which causes his wife to leave him. In Byron's case, it happens merely through old age and frailty, an illness that claims his wife. Each must grapple with the loss of selfhood – their other half.
I've been procrastinating about describing Buscemi's heartbreaking delivery of Byron's monologue about the death of his wife. Circling round it. Not quite getting at the truth.
Throughout the play, Byron is a force of normality, a straight man to Ames's bombastic extremes. Whereas Ames has a self-destructive sadness that runs deeper than his predicament – and might very well form the shell and substance of his soul – Byron is the loyal, sensible friend we aspire to be, or wish we had. He shows up in an hour of need, providing much-needed comfort, forgiving us as we talk in circles, unable to get out the truth.
Towards the end of the play, after an explosive altercation, we learn that Byron is not a pillar of strength. The roles reverse; he is just as needy and unhinged, if not more so. When Byron's wife died, he never bothered to tell Ames. His best friend sees that as a betrayal and demands an explanation.
In confessing the reason for his silence, Byron describes his wife's dying face. And how, unable to say goodbye, he bundled her up in her coat, carried her on his back, and took her to visit all the places they used to go. In the car, or on long walks. He would pretend to people passing that she was just tired and had fallen asleep. And finally, when he carried her back to bed, bundled up warm and ready to let her go – he left the door open, just in case she needed anything...
Words fail to describe the quietly devastating brilliance of Buscemi's performance. The hush of the audience; the beautiful, wordless, loving response from Aidan. Words fail. His delivery was simple, boyish and innocent, joyful at times, and so full of the pure, pure love in him, talking about his wife.
(Buscemi's wife of over thirty years, Jo Andres, died in 2019. I’ll not say more.)
I didn't know how much I needed to hear that monologue. How much I needed to just feel my own grief. Or how much I had grown accustomed to ignoring it, forgetting it even.
My mother died two years ago, and I've never spoken to anyone about it. No one wants to hear about my dead mother, or yours either. Dead wives? No chance. People throw platitudes at you in self-defence. If you keep talking, they run away.
Apart from this moment, this monologue, this actor, this stage – how often is it that anyone just listens to our grief?
For once I wasn't alone in my feelings. As he spoke, grief gently seemed to enter the room. Figuratively, she sat in an invisible chair, wistful smile on her face, chin propped in hand, and listened to herself being described. Knowing her own long shadow lives on beside us, sometimes far longer than those we have lost.
The noble suffering of Byron nearly overshadows Ames at this point in the play. Audiences always sympathise with the underdog, and the more innocent they are, the more sympathy they get. By comparison, Ames is a flawed hero, and his flaws have made his misfortune.
It’s a task for an actor to right the balance. Fortunately Aidan Quinn has a natural gravitas and can shift the barometer of a room with only a glance – so he manages to remind the audience of the equal weight of Ames' own tragedy. This play is ultimately driven by his noble quest: he sought the holy grail of romantic love, won it, lost it, and (with Byron's help) comes to realise that love cannot make a man worthy of it unless he first sees himself as worthy.
That is, perhaps, what friends are for.
When the narrator read, “Fade to black,” I was startled the evening had flown. The audience leapt to their feet for a standing ovation. The two actors shared an affectionate hug and received the enthusiastic applause with tearful smiles and gratitude.
In a whirl, everyone had on their coats and was leaving. I ended up in the lobby, half hoping this was only an intermission. Surely there a secret second half of the play, another hour to spend inside the magic? But no, the audience disappeared into the blustery Dublin night. The bus back to Belfast awaited me at the station.
It was synchronicity to encounter Sam Shepard's words in this way; and I had no idea how much I needed to see this play and these actors perform it.
It gave me permission to feel, and that is a gift.
What a tremendous (and terrifying) thing it is to feel – deeply and truly – in the presence of others, when the world demands so many masks. And prefers our silence. And our forgetting.
Thankfully there is art, throwing us a lifeline back to our humanity.
But there is no other drug quite like acting, and nothing else like theatre, for nowhere else are we so profoundly and generously listened to, except perhaps in prayer.
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