Review: The Moth (Finborough Theatre)
Review by Ruth Sealey
⭐️⭐️
The magic of theatre is its ability to feel intimate and vast all within the same performance. To capture both elements, The Moth at Finborough Theatre tells a story covering decades, but it is also based upon a ten-minute monologue. The intimate, fifty-seat venue has hosted outstanding productions in the past, but can this production turn a small space and short piece of writing successfully into something much bigger than its starting point?
The Moth started life as a ten-minute video monologue, winning the Kwanzaa Film Best Monologue Award in New York City. In 2025, it transitioned to stage, touring venues in the north of England, including the Lowry in Salford and Shakespeare North in Liverpool. The story centres on a chance meeting on a train between John Josana, a Black British journalist, and Marius Muller, a White South African ex-soldier. John’s father was forced to flee South Africa with his son in 1976, and Marius fought in the war in Angola, having joined the army at 18 years old. This meeting results in Muller disclosing to John some of his wartime experiences and, over the next decades, a series of events, triggered by this meeting, shape both their lives, eventually bringing them face to face with their respective pasts in front of a nation’s television cameras.
Writer Paul Herzberg was forcibly conscripted into the South African army and drew on both this and his South African background to write the stage adaptation of The Moth. But a question hangs over this production: why turn a prize-winning, ten-minute video monologue into a stage production of nearly two hours? Sadly, the production never fully answers it, resulting in a rather drawn-out exploration of racism and apartheid that ultimately loses its way. Herzberg starts strongly, and my interest was immediately piqued as John and Marius meet on the train and the tension builds. The script shows what Herzberg is capable of and, when John and Marius are left alone to tell their story and we, the audience, are able to observe and unpick their history and dilemmas for ourselves, the production is at its strongest. Unfortunately, for much of the play we are spoken to directly, with exposition used to the extreme. There is a frustration that I feel when I am lectured at or told how to feel, and often The Moth feels more like a history lesson rather than a piece of theatre.
Director Jake Murray is not helped by the structure of the text, but his direction often leaves either John or Marius sitting and observing as the other explains, step by step, what has happened and how we should feel at that moment. Combined with the lengthy expositions, the slow pace becomes difficult to overcome. Moving between different times and places, it is not always clear where, or indeed when, some of the scenes are taking place. We return frequently to the TV studio where John and Marius meet again, but the constant back and forth in time gives the production a disjointed and repetitive feel. With such a lengthy story across time, the direction needs to allow the characters to interact more with each other and find more varied ways to tell their individual stories.
Some of the confusion surrounding time and place is compounded by design choices that do not support the storytelling as clearly as they might. Having seen and reviewed many small-scale productions, I am aware that limited budgets can restrict what is possible in terms of elaborate sets, but that is not what this production needs. Amelia Mitchell’s set revolves around an office desk and two wheeled desk chairs, with the same space required to transform into a train and a television studio. However, with relatively little changing between the locations, the distinction is not always clear. Even small details, such as John oddly drinking from a glass tumbler of water whilst on the train, which appears to have been left behind from the previous studio scene, add to the uncertainty.
Video images, designed by Amelia Mitchell and Paul C Clark, appear on a television screen at the rear of the stage, predominantly showing faces of the people and events that John and Marius are describing. This is a clever touch, linking the television studio with actual events that they are describing, but when it becomes the view from the train window or shows scenes of the war, it feels very small and detached from the narrative. At one point, Marius points out of the window, saying how green the countryside of England is, when the video that is playing is clearly in black and white. While I am always keen to recognise the contribution that design can make to a production, here the visual choices do not consistently provide the clarity needed.
Micky Cochrane’s Marius is a man attempting to deal with a traumatic past, his angry outbursts rooted in a horrific upbringing and the trauma of war. However, his revelation on the train, the driving force in the original monologue, ultimately only forms a small part of this much longer production, when it perhaps needs greater prominence. As the play progresses, the repeated outbursts begin to lose their intended impact. Likewise, Faz Singhateh’s John Josana feels under-developed, with too much left unexplored to fully understand or empathise with his character. Both actors have stronger moments when given the opportunity to interact with one another, and these exchanges become the strongest elements of the piece. The difficulty for them is that the script introduces so many themes and ideas, including multi-generation trauma and absent parents, but rarely gives them space to be fully explored. As a result, both characters feel somewhat thin, with their motivations often obscured by the production’s reliance on direct address.
At a time when cultural identity and racism remain prominent in current affairs, finding ways to share stories and memories with contemporary audiences feels both relevant and important. However, The Moth needs to treat its audience with more credit, allowing us to watch, absorb and explore its themes without feeling as though we are being given a lecture on the mistakes of the past. The design choices and the reliance on exposition leave this production struggling to find its feet, with too many moments feeling more like a history lesson than a piece of theatre. What works so well as a short monologue does not have the structure to sustain a production of this length, and while there is certainly an important story here, it needs more work to have the same impact on stage.
The Moth plays at Finborough Theatre until 21st November. Tickets from https://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/the-moth
Photos by Victoria Wai