The Story of Plague

The first ever run-thru of PLAGUE and the MOONflower was done one morning in a saloon in Exeter, where Ralph took the production’s first star, Sir Ian Holm, who read the narration in its entirety to an audience of one – the cleaning lady.

The pub had not properly opened being, as it was, only 11 a.m.

“That’s very nice, Dearie!" shouted the cleaning lady to Ian, above the noise of the vacuum cleaner. "You should do it for a living!"

"I will bear it in mind!" Ian shouted back….

Ian was magnificent and performed about six times before saying that he felt he had exhausted any expressive interpretation he had left in his body.

                                          - Ralph Steadman

Since this auspicious beginning, Ralph Steadman and Richard Harvey’s PLAGUE and the MOONflower has been performed in every major cathedral in the UK, as well as in Australia. In this seminal work, Harvey, world-renowned composer, conductor, and virtuoso instrumentalist, interweaves narration, solo vocal and guitar performances, and choruses of children and adults — as many as 100 voices — to convey the spirit of Steadman’s powerful libretto.

Presented with the projection of Steadman’s vivid paintings, PLAGUE and the MOONflower illuminates the hapless waste and destruction we fuel with apathy while a sustainable Earth fades from the futures of our children.  Yet it is the child in the parable who, like a rare botanical species, MOONflower, transforms the dark side of human nature into a tender, but strengthened reservoir of hope.

THE TIME IS RIGHT for this new-century revision of PLAGUE and the MOONflower to come to the United States, as the prospect of a dying planet thrusts both despair and inspiration upon us, more and more each day.