Canadian Stage's 'The Far Side of the Moon' is Robert Lepage at his best — but also his most tedious

It’s a story about human connection, rivalry and the duality of humankind. But it’s performed by a cast of one. 

Its narrative is slight, tender and simplistic. But it’s drawn out over two hours, without an intermission. 

Notwithstanding some moments of gorgeous stage imagery, it’s a show that feels tedious and overindulgent. But by the end, it’s also quietly stirring, an unexpectedly moving work far greater than the sum of its parts. 

Set in Quebec in the 1990s, Lepage’s multidisciplinary theatrical piece centres on two brothers, each the antithesis of the other. Philippe, around 40 years old, is still in grad. school and attempting, for the third time, to defend his doctoral thesis on space exploration. He’s curious and intelligent, but held back by his shy, awkward demeanour. His life seems to be sputtering in circles. 

His brother André, however, is charismatic, vain and comically blockish. He’s found success as a TV presenter for the Weather Channel. Unlike Philippe, for him, everything’s coming up roses. 

The two siblings, practically estranged, are forced back together after the death of their mother, who’s succumbed to a battle with kidney disease. 

There’s not much of a plot nor a clear central conflict to “The Far Side of the Moon.” Rather, Lepage’s opus is an elegy on various themes: friendship, competition, beauty, death, rebirth. 

He blends words with movement and music. (The original compositions are by Laurie Anderson.) Some scenes play out wordlessly; others are filled with verbose monologues, probing in their poeticism. 

The family drama at the heart of the story is paired with images and archival recordings of the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Throughout, there’s a driving sense of duality and dichotomy. 

This opposition is reflected in Lepage’s production design, too. He plays with light and darkness. He uses mirrors to alter perspective. His moving set pieces act like a camera’s aperture, expanding and contracting to frame a scene. 

As with Lepage’s other projects, “The Far Side of the Moon” is filled with some truly stunning visual images. Mundane objects are transformed into symbols and recurring motifs: a fishbowl, an ironing board, a laundry machine that doubles as a lunar module.

At its core, the play is a celebration of the same wonder, ingenuity and imagination that drove humans to the moon. One of the show’s most breathtaking sequences comes at the end: In a scene appropriately set to Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” we watch Philippe seemingly floating in space.

This isn’t achieved with any special effects. In fact, the audience can see how the image is created in real time. But it’s this analogue simplicity that makes the scene all the more awe-inspiring. This is Lepage at his best. 

My frustration with “The Far Side of the Moon” is that for every one of these brilliant scenes, there are two others that slide into tedium. In the first half, one sequence in particular feels like a wearisome exercise in how many ways Lepage can manipulate an ironing board into various other objects. 

There’s a difference between being smart and trying to be clever. Too often, this production favours the latter. 

The Quebecois actor Olivier Normand, stepping into the part that Lepage originated some 25 years ago, is impressive in the endlessly busy role — switching between characters, and in and out of costumes, on a dime. But he’s also somewhat miscast. 

Normand possesses a deep, reverberant and expressive voice. He slips well into the role of André, but not so much Philippe. He also doesn’t do enough to distinguish between the two brothers. (If not for Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt’s costumes, I would not have been able to tell them apart.) 

I guess my thoughts on this play are a bit contradictory, as well. Much of the show didn’t work for me. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t touched by the end.

Lepage’s story is hopeful: Even those so opposed to each other, like André and Philippe, can still find a point of connection, of understanding. And be it in 1990s Quebec, during the Space Race or even on the far side of the moon, there’s something so universal to that.