I sat down with writer Paul Herzberg to find out more about The Moth coming to the Finborough Theatre this October.
The Moth is rooted in your own background and forced conscription during the Angolan Border War. What inspired you to channel those lived experiences of apartheid and its reverberations into a psychological thriller for the stage?
Growing up under apartheid had a profound impact on me and inspired three other plays. I thought I’d said all I wanted to say on the subject when Jake Murray of Elysium approached me looking for a monologue for YouTube.
I had an unfinished piece inspired by a haunting anecdote told to me by an Angolan war veteran, about a traumatised White conscript’s encounter with a wounded Black captive.
That became the starting point for the monologue, which met with considerable success. Jake and I subsequently developed it into a full-length play.
What drew you to exploring the legacy of apartheid three decades after its fall, and why does this central conflict between John and Marius feel so urgent for modern audiences?
As John Josana says in the play, “Apartheid is over in name. In law. But the idea behind it, the willingness, the fear, the madness, that hasn’t gone.” We are living through a period of resurgent xenophobia, and I wanted to explore how the legacy of apartheid and the Angolan Border War speaks to the present. Circumstances change, but the capacity for prejudice, dehumanisation and violence remains.
In their final confrontation before the nation, John and Marius lay bare their conflicting truths. Their struggle forces us to consider the relationship between guilt, responsibility and forgiveness, and whether confronting the past can help us prevent its worst impulses from taking hold again.
What has been the biggest challenge in bringing this production to life? How does the design of your show (set, sound, or lighting) impact the presentation of your story?
The play presents an unusual theatrical challenge. John Josana is a renowned television presenter whose show, Confessional, attracts a huge audience. He puts his guests in the hot seat, using searching questions to draw out contentious experiences from their pasts, often generating newspaper headlines in the process.
But this time, John has chosen to share his platform with Marius, the man he encountered on a train in 1997. Their encounter has stayed with both men, though for very different reasons, and now they must face each other before a national audience.
The production moves between the television studio and the events leading up to it, using projected still and moving images to help tell the story. The screen also serves as the carriage window in the train scenes. The biggest challenge was to integrate these different elements while maintaining the dramatic tension. Jake Murray has mastered that balance brilliantly.
If you could sum up the show in one word or phrase, what would it be and why?
History lives on.
The Moth runs at the Finborough Theatre, London, on 27 October – 21 November. Tickets available at https://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/the-moth
