Michel Tremblay’s play is a 90-minute walk along the Via Dolorosa. This is a play about the agonies of separation and betrayal, and Tremblay does not spare us in his depiction of that pain.

The structure of the play is simple, but ingenious. Six separate stories are told by the residents of an apartment block, standing out on their balconies to watch the full moon.

One of the stories is the joyous one of a young couple. The others are all stories of regret and fear: a gay couple, one of whom is dying of Aids, contracted while unfaithful; a daughter caring for her disabled father; and more.

The stories are woven together not in a narrative, but in an incantation. Standing on their balconies, they speak in unconscious chorus. Individuals break off to tell their own stories in the form of desperate, angry prayers, and from around them come echoes and refrains. The effect is, deliberately, like that of the sung mass.

As with the mass, solemnity occasionally descends into somnolence. The musical quality of the piece is uneven, and notes occasionally jar. Between the low chanting and the high anguish, I feared the play and production would quickly become monotonous.

But a searing monologue by Ronan Leahy, as a spurned gay lover, unsettled me. And then a ferocious outburst by Barry McGovern, as a man left without arms from an industrial accident, left me reeling. It was a brief flash, but it was one of those moments for which you go to the theatre. There is, miraculously, an upbeat note at the end, beautifully realised by Darragh Kelly and Arthur Riordan.

This is a superb choice of play, and well realised by director Tom Creed.

Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer is at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, presented by Rough Magic Theatre Company. There is a website devoted to the production here.

Published in the Irish Independent.