Shonaleigh brings centuries of Jewish wonder tales to the Netherbow Theatre with absolute ease. This isn’t just an exercise in preserving history; it is a shared, living experience.
The Netherbow Theatre is the ideal space for Shonaleigh. It isn’t too small, nor is it too large—it’s just the right size for a solo performer to enchant a room. Without help from mysterious lighting or any other special effect, her storytelling relies purely on voice, charisma, pace, and instinct.
Hers is company you immediately want to keep. Before launching into the evening’s main event, she effortlessly welcomes the audience into her world with a story from her own past, involving a Muslim best friend and an ill-fated pan of pork chops.
From there, she moves into the Drut’syla—a Yiddish oral tradition made of thousands of interconnected stories, passed lovingly down a centuries-long line of female story-keepers. Eighteen of her grandmother’s tales were recently published under the same title, complete with illustrations by Katherine Soutar.
On stage, however, there isn’t a single visual aid to be found. Relying purely on the spoken word, Shonaleigh shows why these stories survived as an oral tradition before they found their way into ink.
The core of the evening’s story is wonderfully whimsical, but underpinned by timeless ideas. The moon, miserable in the dark and cold, asks the sun to plead her case with the Creator. This leads to a heavenly request to the tailors of earth. Enter Meyer. Emphatic but understated, and with a sparkle in her eye, Shonaleigh creates a hero we can all care for and recognise: that kind, smart, but completely oblivious hero that pops up in infinite stories across time.
Cosmology and Lycra
Meyer is totally blind to the marital ambitions of the young girl waving him off, and delightfully ignorant of the impossible task of sewing for a heavenly body that waxes and wanes. It’s a tall order set long before the invention of Lycra. His search for enchanted, expanding cloth leads him to kindly inn-keepers, mysterious boat-men, the enigmatic First Dog, and a land beyond the Milky Way.
Shonaleigh makes telling this tale of many parts look easy. It’s really a vehicle for several sub-plots, wandering from familiar domestic comedy into cosmological fairy-tale and back again without missing a beat. The hints of other stories intersecting with ours only make it a richer experience, all the better for not being told.
“Hers is company you immediately want to keep. Before launching into the evening’s main event, she effortlessly welcomes the audience into her world with a story from her own past, involving a Muslim best friend and an ill-fated pan of pork chops.“
It’s a wonderful tale, laced throughout with a delightfully Jewish sense of humour. As Shonaleigh puts it, she finds herself making the Creator male when causing problems for folks, and female when putting them right. It’s less a deliberate challenge to traditional views of gender, and more a sign of her flexible point of view.
She also rewards an audience prepared to pay attention, withholding certain details unless the room can remember the journey behind them. This touch of audience participation is just one more sprinkle of stardust on the evening.
Ultimately, A Garment for the Moon serves as a beautiful nod to the rich heritage of the Drut’syla tradition. Shonaleigh doesn’t just recount a tale; she proves the enduring power of good stories to travel down through the years and effortlessly captivate audiences. It makes for a warm, generous, and deeply human hour that lingers long after the final sentence is spoken.
Featured Image: Shonaleigh – SISF Poster – Image by Joshua Crisp
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