By David Greenham

James Ijames’s funny, moving family fable receives an engaging New England premiere, but its comforts also raise questions about what local theater should risk in a moment of public crisis.

Moon Man Walk by James Ijames. Directed by Lyndsay Allyn Cox. Scenic design by Dahlia Al-Habieli.  Costume design by Zöe Sundra. Lighting design by Lindsay Alayne Stevens. Sound design by Aubrey Dube. Props design by Leah Marcil.  Intimacy direction by Leanna Miesen. Staged by Gloucester Stage at the Natti-Willsky Performance Center, Gloucester, through September 26.

The cast of the Gloucester Stage production of Moon Man Walk. Photo: Benjamin Rose

“In the beginning,” the four actors in Moon Man Walk tell us, “there was a boy who grew up to be a man but was still a boy. He lived his life as a man/boy looking at the moon.”

That man/boy is Spencer (Dom Carter), whom we first meet in childhood. His overworked but loving mother, Esther (Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle), is trying to reassure him as she heads to her evening job. A single mother, Esther faces the nearly impossible task of raising her son with little support.

Young Spencer longs to understand his circumstances. Esther, unwilling to share the truth, tells him that his father was an astronaut—NASA’s first Black astronaut. He flew his spaceship to the moon, but, she says, his father is stranded there. With that news, Spencer’s imagination runs wild.

We meet the Astronaut (Dereks Thomas) in his space suit as he discovers that he is indeed stranded, left behind after his crew flies the capsule away. In this moonscape—the one in Spencer’s mind—the Astronaut is able to remove his helmet and breathe normally. “The moon is part of the Earth, and we are all moon men looking for homes,” the space traveler says in an ethereal tone.

The trajectory of a young boy navigating the path to adulthood lies at the core of James Ijames’s 2015 play Moon Man Walk, now receiving its New England premiere at Gloucester Stage.

The present-day action finds Spencer, a gentle, bookish Philadelphia librarian, boarding a plane to travel home for his mother’s funeral. His seatmate is Petrushka (Lorraine Victoria Kanyike), whose adventurous spirit and bubbling sexuality leave Spencer both smitten and scared. He is not one who trusts others easily, but Petrushka disarms him and becomes his constant companion.

Through an ambitious prism of memories that bring in his mother, encounters with his new girlfriend, imaginary flights to outer space, and even a couple of scenes that are not inspired by Spencer’s imagination, Ijames creates an engaging, funny, and often touching abstract tale.

A twist arrives when Spencer and Petrushka sort through the old apartment he shared with his mother. They discover a letter that reveals the truth: Spencer’s ne’er-do-well father is in jail. The news irritates Spencer, but it also opens a potential new path toward understanding. Should he go see his father?

Back on the moon, the Astronaut is having an existential crisis of his own. “What if I’m not real?” he wonders. “What if someone is dreaming me up here?”

Another scene jumps even further back in time, to before Spencer was born. A studious Esther is reading Anna Karenina when classmate Kezzi Joffa (also Thomas) begins to wend his way into her heart with generous servings of charm and wit.

A subsequent scene shows this relationship breaking apart. Esther announces that she is pregnant and intends to keep the baby; at the same time, she discovers that her partner has been making money dealing drugs. She kicks him out. “Name him Spencer,” the soft-spoken Kezzi offers as a parting shot, “so I can know him when we comes lookin’ for me.”

The 80-minute comic drama offers the surprises that audiences have come to expect from Ijames, the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright who transformed Hamlet into a Southern-backyard family barbecue in Fat Ham. But Moon Man Walk is a fledgling work, and it lacks depth.

Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle and Dereks Thomas in the Gloucester Stage production of Moon Man Walk.  Photo: Benjamin Rose

Fortunately, director Lyndsay Allyn Cox and the stellar cast make Gloucester’s production effective and enjoyable. As Spencer, Dom Carter has the heaviest lift. The character is onstage for nearly the entire show, and the performer shifts seamlessly between young Spencer and adult Spencer while he also serves as the tale’s narrator. Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle, as Esther, brings a matter-of-fact bearing to her character, who has to take on a number of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Her Esther remains graceful and loving throughout.

Likewise, Dereks Thomas portrays Spencer’s lost father with a calm, heartbreaking humanity; the actor also supplies a couple of lively turns as a funeral director and flower-shop owner. Lorraine Victoria Kanyike infuses Petrushka with a delightfully crazed lightness. Self-assured and relentlessly upbeat, Kanyike provides a necessary tonic to the gentle naturalism of the other performances.

Beyond her infectious energy and unwavering support of Spencer, however, it is not always clear what dramatic function Petrushka—a character who seemingly drops into the story at random—serves. She is a valuable sounding board when needed and virtually invisible otherwise. Still, there is a moment in which she and Spencer meet that might have been a seed for something more. As Spencer breaks the fourth wall to narrate, Petrushka notices and asks what he is doing. He shows her the audience, and she is intrigued. “Do they go everywhere with you?” she asks. It would have been interesting if that Pirandellian path had been explored, but the playwright does not make that choice.

The design team has created a simple, easily navigable environment. Dahlia Al-Habieli’s scenic design suggests a kind of moonscape, except for a corner that contains elements of Esther’s apartment. Zöe Sundra’s costumes are effective and playful. Lindsay Alayne Stevens uses a series of globe-shaped hanging lights to create a starry atmosphere, while Aubrey Dube combines a realistic soundscape with an interplanetary flow.

Once again, Gloucester Stage artistic director Rebecca Bradshaw has delivered a strong and engaging season. Moon Man Walk is an enticing, intimate portrait of a young man and his family. Sharyn Rothstein’s Bad Books offered a comic glimpse of the battles over censorship, while Harold Pinter’s Betrayal provided a rather clinical look at failing marriage and friendship. I did not see the world premiere of Dalloway, which, by all accounts, was a success. The play tapped into the current fascination with the writing of women such as Virginia Woolf and the Brontë sisters. All in all, it was a strong season.

But, as Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx and others often point out, we face an array of imminent threats: climate change, food insecurity, a housing crisis, income inequality, young people’s loss of hope for the future and, of course, our national leaders’ seeming disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. In this context, a season of quaint, well-produced plays can feel like an abdication of theater’s power to speak to the challenges of the present.

Gloucester Stage is not alone in this. But, at this moment—its season just completed—I urge Bradshaw and the board to plan a future season that includes at least one play that boldly addresses an issue of immediate concern to the people of Gloucester and the North Shore. That choice may draw pushback from some, but it would also earn the respect of many others.

David Greenham is an arts and culture consultant, adjunct lecturer on Drama at the University of Maine at Augusta, and is the former executive director of the Maine Arts Commission. He can be found at https://davidgreenham.com/