JOHN MORAN : SOLO SERIES
Composer / Perforning-Artist
SOLOS
Touring in 2015
Part 3, Goodbye, Thailand, we then return to Bangkok, and meet - in theatrical portaiture - 'Eye', a Thai ladyboy who has befriended the composer while in Thailand, and who has turned to the financially destitute artist for help.
The idea of language is examined - along with the trademark study of musicality in all of Moran's works. Here, we are focused on the difficulties language presents to us, as well as cultural understandings and the effects of crushing poverty.
In Part 1, Thailand, we find the composer living in Berlin. Told through phsyical-gesture and sound, we meet a composer obsessed with the musicality around him, as he is forced to flee Europe discovering he is over his visa. The story serves as a starting point however, in breaking down the music we experience in our world unnoticed, and is finally deconstruced into musical/choreographic sequences.
From there, told through live perofrmance and projected animation, we are transported to exotic Bangkok where a new world unfolds.
Part 2, takes us to the city of Amsterdam, where we learn Moran has a performance due for completiion. After experiencing the culture shock that was Bangkok however, we learn in a casual on-stage introduction that Moran has 'forgotten' to create the piece in time for the performance, and now must simply 'fill time' with whatever he can.
Craziness ensue as he attempts to finish a piece as quickly as he can, while drifting through memories of the real-life characters he has met so far in this journey.
Thailand
Etude: Amsterdam
Goodbye, Thailand
SOLO-SERIES is a trilogy of one-hour theatrical solos - which can be presented separately, or together - created and performed by American composer-performer John Moran. The individual sections of the award-winning trilogy were originally commissioned by Pumpenhaus Münster (Germany), The Arches (Glasgow, Scotland), Fringe Amsterdam (Netherlands), Mayfest Bristol (England) and Battersea Arts Centre (London) between 2010-13, each to critical acclaim, including Best of Fringe (Spoletto, Italy and Fringe Amsterdam). For 2015, the series is scheduled to tour between Germany, Poland, Scotland, England, Netherlands and Israel.
Video Excerpt from Part 1
Selected Reviews
"John Moran has the unique ability to find beauty in every day occurrences, and of such profundity, that we mere mortals might easily have missed. In fact, there seems to be something haunted about John Moran, and it is hard not to worry for him a little."
- About Oxford
"This sort of theatre is unique to John Moran and really must be seen to be properly understood. If you like your theatre to have meaning then you really should make an effort to see this. It is variably uplifting and crushing, wonderfully optimistic and then utterly mundane - but always totally honest and all the more revealing for it."
- Andrew Johnson, Daily Info
Video Excerpt from Part 2
Selected Reviews
Video Excerpt from Part 3
Selected Reviews
"Anyone who loves experimental music and theater will be blown away…truly beautiful."
- Off Script (UK)
"The production is so seamless, that it is sometimes hard to spot when Moran is about to make a transition from speaking to us directly to performing. It’s amazing what he can make us 'see' when he is working with only a stool, lighting states and sound effects."
- Mayfest (Bristol)
"The sense of loneliness, melancholy, drifting, is embedded in the fabric of the show. There is nothing really between this artist and his art."
- Exeunt Magazine (UK)
"A bewilderingly beautiful expression of life as art. It's stunning. It's difficult. And it's unique."
- Exeunt Magazine (UK)
"A moving, funny, thoroughly engrossing piece about the unravelling of Moran’s relationship. It is almost disconcerting, the ease with which Moran appears to leave his body, his own personality entirely vanishing to make way for the personality of the character he creates. His body language, the way his facial muscles move, and of course the voice, every aspect of a person is seamlessly brought together in a minutely detailed portrayal of the protagonists of the story."
- Venue (UK)