Ruby Moon Codes And Conventions

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Ruby Moon
A mesmerizing and haunting tale, little Ruby Moon disappears without a trace from her Australian suburbia home and leaves her parents, Ray (Matthew Filkins) and Sylvie (Mary Eggleston), absolutely distraught. Written by Matt Cameron in 2003 Ruby Moon is a contemporary Australian play that explores dramatic forms, techniques and conventions from theatre styles such as Australian Gothic and Magical Realism. Although originally directed by Helen Howard for QMF, Dan Evans came along and took on the challenge as a director to make this Ruby Moon his own. Manipulating the magical realism conventions, symbolism and multiple role-playing, and australian gothic convention intertextuality, Dan presents with dark humour a disturbing yet intriguing remarkable piece of theatre.
A very obvious convention that Dan Evans has manipulated into this play is the use of magical realism’s multiple role-playing. With only two actors and eight different characters, we watch Ray and Sylvie progressively lose their mind as they visit each …show more content…

Mostly focusing on the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, Dan has successfully manipulated this into the play near the start when Sylvie asks Ray to "tell her the story." However, unlike usual fairy tales there is no happy ending in this one and as Dulcie mentioned, comparing Ruby Moon's disappearance to Little Red Riding Hood, "... she wasnt missing this long." The use of this fractured fairy-tale element evokes the world of childhood innocence and the of the dangers of “woods and wolves.” Other childhood experiences are also blended into this dark story such as finding coins to buy an ice cream from Mr Whippy, the innocence of neighbourhood children to come out and have a treat has turned into something far more sinister then ever imagined at the start of the play. These small yet key features in the play creates tension, fear of the unknown and provokes questions for the audience to think