Syracuse Stage: What the Moon Saw (or, “I Only Appear To Be Dead”)

What the Moon Saw (or, “I Only Appear To Be Dead”) is a play by Stephanie Fleischman currently performing at Syracuse Stage now through April 6. Directed by Danyon Davis, the play is a surreal voyage through New York City in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, which is visited by Hans Christian Anderson, who is on a self-aggrandizing tour of monuments to him. But in NYC, he comes face to face with the miseries of people in the City but also of his own characters, to the point that he can barely recognize them.

The performances, filtered in through a stage full of debris, are kinetic and powerful. The Little Mermaid swirls through this being her first introduction to the world, while HC (her writer) starts with a booming level of self-importance only to find himself resorting to a bear costume to make sense of the world he’s in. Most of all, the staging makes sense of the play, which seems to offer how fairy tales are not an escape, but maybe give us some means of finding the ways through the miseries in our own lives.

There’s still time to catch a performance! Tickets here.

image courtesy of the Syracuse Stage website