This past weekend, the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club put up a sparkling example of theatre at its best in the Loeb Experimental Theater. One of the semester’s final theater productions, HRDC’s production of PigPen Theatre Co.’s “The Old Man and the Old Moon,” was near-perfect. Directed by Ria Cuéllar-Koh ’26, the show was light-hearted in tone yet serious in artistic heft and impressive in execution.
Audiences filed into a well-crafted set that resembled a deconstructed boat. Glass bottles lined shelves and sat stacked under the eaves of the wooden platforms. Ropes hung in parabolas across the black curtains that serve as the “walls” of the Loeb Ex. A wooden ladder leaned against the back of the ship, and next to it, a flickering projection of the moon that looked straight out of an old-timey film like Méliès’ “A Trip to the Moon.” The moon’s projections—designed by show actor Yirenny Cordero ’25—waxed and waned with the progression of the narrative, serving as a beautiful visual through-line.
At the start of the play, the Old Man appeared to lead a monotonous life, diligently performing his daily duty of filling the moon with light. In the first scene, hunch-backed and tired, the Old Man (Jack Griffin ’25) climbed up the ladder at the back of the set with a bucket of “liquid light.” He poured light into the moon to top it off, and the moon’s projection shifted, reflecting the changing amount of light as if the moon were a spherical basin for liquid.
But the Old Man’s journey really began when his wife, portrayed by Yirenny Cordero ’25, was drawn away to sea by a strange, familiar melody. He embarked on an extravagant journey to find the Old Woman, eventually finding passage aboard a ship by pretending to be legendary sailor Pericles Llewellyn McWallander, revered by the ship’s crew and thought to be dead. The Old Man convinced his newfound crew to sail West under the guise of reaching a promised land—the City of Light. Really, the Old Man just sought to find his lost wife. Thus began a fun, magical maritime adventure.
It was apparent from the beginning that this production would be a captivating blend of different types of performing arts—and it did not disappoint. Folksy song and dance numbers, puppetry (shadow, sock, and milk carton!), projections, and standard book script intertwined perfectly. Spoken scenes transitioned seamlessly into pleasant, fluid choreography by Adrienne Chan ’25, which shifted into scenes told entirely through shadow puppetry. A white sheet hung off one of the makeshift ship’s wooden poles, which actors pulled taut to a second wooden pole for shadow puppet scenes, shining a flashlight through the sheet, illuminating the silhouettes of cut-out figures.
The show was well-cast—each actor’s performance was unique in its own right, yet equally high in quality. Griffin brought an appropriate steadiness to his portrayal of the Old Man, beautifully balancing the character’s dichotomous, yet coexistent qualities. Griffin was convincingly spacey yet grounded, tired yet determined, and wise yet youthful. He did a fantastic job portraying the Old Man’s dramatic character arc from complacent to venturesome as he rediscovered both memory and purpose.
Isaac Newman ’25 brought a thrilling theatricality to his character Matheson—almost over-the-top but never quite tipping too far, his energetic portrayal of the narrator/first-mate-turned-captain brought fun exposition to many scenes.
Jesse Hernandez ’25 demonstrated his multifaceted aptitude for acting, vocals, and puppetry in his portrayal of Mabelu, a sailor with a special bond to a dog. Hernandez simultaneously portrayed both Mabelu and his beloved dog, a puppet constructed out of a milk carton and a mop head. Somehow, likely due largely to Hernandez’s impressive acting, the milk-dog was very believable—it was even kind of cute, cocking its head in amusement and barking. John Rhee ’27 and Independent staff member Frederick Lionel Klein ’28 rounded out the cast wonderfully, each uniquely delightful in their characters, contributing to the joyous energy of the rowdy bunch of sailors.
The rest of the cast exhibited equally impressive performances. Elio Kennedy-Yoon ’25 brought perfect “spirited-young-lad” energy to his character Llewellyn. Yirenny Cordero ’25 was highly versatile—warm and sweet as the Old Woman and a bundle of energy as her other characters, like the jovial sailor Cookie and the spunky aviator Bartley.
The direction and staging were consistently delightful and thorough. Director Cuéllar-Koh made substantial use of the set’s platforms, ladder, and the architecture of the theater itself. In one scene, characters were in a hot-air balloon, cleverly depicted by actors standing on the balcony of the Loeb Ex, with light pointed directly up at them. The pacing and flow of the dialogue were fantastic—not too rushed but not too slow. There was a giddy, joyous energy throughout the performance, which can only partly be credited to the script. A large amount of the energy certainly stemmed from the fantastic direction by Cuéllar-Koh and natural chemistry between the actors.
It was clear that actors had their own fun too—in one scene, a member of the orchestra pit, Derek Yuan ’25, acted as a bar patron. Actors jokingly called Yuan by his real name in the scene. The creative team also took a less serious approach at times—during a cartoonish fight scene, red, white, and blue lights spun and danced around. It was clear that these designers had their fun with the show while bringing the full force of their technical and acting experience to the production.
The technical elements of the production were masterfully done. Lighting designers Em Barnes ’25 and PK/Lauren Byunn-Rieder ’25 silhouetted the set and the actors in beautiful shades of blue, reminiscent of the night sky and a stormy sea. Warm whites lit up the actors’ faces as if they were singing and dancing to the soft glow of lanterns in a ship’s underbelly. Upon the Old Man’s arrival in the city of lights, a soft blue glow emanated from under the wooden platforms, illuminating the stacked glass bottles under the platforms in a way that made the stage itself look as if it had become the city of lights. Barnes and Byunn-Rieder managed to make the small, intimate space of the Loeb Ex feel both liminal and limitless, transporting audience members into a lovely dream far from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The lighting and sound design complemented each other well. A particular moment that exhibited lovely technical harmony was when the Old Man found himself trapped in the belly of a giant fish. A dramatic shadow puppet montage portrayed the Old Man’s ship getting caught in a nasty storm. His fate was left briefly undetermined until the following scene revealed that he had been swallowed by a giant fish. Actors were lit by almost cartoonish shades of pink and green, which perfectly evoked the comical, outlandish interior of a fish’s stomach. Underneath the dialogue of the scene, a soft, rather uncomfortable dripping sound of sorts played, making one feel as if they were genuinely being assaulted by drops of piscine stomach secretion.
This production was unique in that its cast and crew were composed largely of seniors. This show was thus a last hurrah for many of its contributors. This was evident in both the honed expertise on display and the bittersweet atmosphere of the show.
The seniors involved in the production expressed gratitude and happiness toward their last show. In her program note, choreographer Chan bid farewell to HRDC. “I am so fortunate to have landed here for my senior spring: doing what I love with those I love. I am forever grateful to have called Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club home for these past years,” she wrote.
Actress and projections designer Cordero expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with the Independent.
“I really enjoyed working on this show because it felt like the level of silliness really matched my energy this semester,” Cordero said. “It was a great experience to work again with people I met during my freshman year while doing the first-year musical. This show was the perfect amount of unserious that allowed us to just have fun; I love to laugh, and this show let me do that unapologetically.”
HRDC’s production of “The Old Man and the Old Moon” was a breath of fresh air. The show was heartfelt, but not to an unpleasant extent—it was tender and loving without veering into the realm of the sickly sweet. The sappiness was perfectly dosed, like sliding into a warm bath after a long day, or taking that first bite of the perfect third bowl of porridge. “The Old Man and the Old Moon” was a love letter to the art of theater itself. It reminded its audience members of the power of a good show—its ability to transport us beyond the four walls of the theater and into a beautiful waking dream.
Kayla Reifel ’26 (kaylareifel@college.harvard.edu) loves the moon almost as much as she loves the theater.