A stunning, hypnotic and mesmerizing journey that hits on every sense and emotion.
The story follows a lonely man in his forties who lost his mother and is trying to repair a fractured relationship with his brother. The nostalgia of the Cold War space race sets the tone, but the plot is really a vessel for Robert Lepage’s surreal vision. He turns the stage into something close to a fever dream. If Salvador DalĆ were asked to write and direct a play, it would feel like this.
It pulls you back into the 1990s. You hear lines like:
Life’s a bitch and then you die.
And later:
I’m loud and I’m not going to make a fool of myself.
You barely have time to process how these lines land because the production keeps shifting between tenderness and quiet terror.
The way the show blends video, sound, puppetry, light, mirrors, and acoustics pushes it into a different category. It is not just theatre. It is a machine built to overwhelm you.
When the main character misses his talk after flying to Moscow, I almost cried. The moment is small, human, and devastating.
I could try to explain the plot in more detail, but it would only flatten it. This is something you need to experience in person.
The Far Side of the Moon is a once-in-a-lifetime performance carried by a single actor and supported by a dozen invisible collaborators.
I hadnāt heard of Robert Lepage before this. I am grateful this world opened up to me.
