About the Play:

Salt-Water Moon has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Salt-Water Moon is a full-length drama by David French. On a moonlit night in Coley's Point in 1926, Jacob Mercer has returned from Toronto to the tiny Newfoundland outport, hoping to win back his former sweetheart, Mary Snow. But Mary has since become engaged to wealthy young man, and she is still hurt and bewildered by Jacob's abrupt departure a year earlier. She will not be easily wooed. Salt-Water Moon is a gently humorous, deeply affecting love story by one of Canada's most respected writers. Particularly suitable for schools and play contests.

Salt-Water Moon is about a young man's attempt to win back the love of a woman. The time is 1926, the place the front porch of a summer home in the tiny coastal town of Coley's Point, Newfoundland. Mary Snow, a lovely young girl of seventeen, studies the evening sky through a telescope. Her reverie is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Jacob Mercer, the boy with whom she had once fallen in love, and who, a year ago suddenly departed for Toronto without so much as a good-bye. Now Jacob has returned to Coley's Point, wanting to win back the affection which Mary once felt for him. In his absence, however, Mary has decided to accept the marriage proposal of Jerome McKenzie, the local schoolmaster, who may be on the dull side but is certainly reliable and more than willing to provide for her younger sister, Dot. But when memories of Jacob are revived, and when he feigns leaving for good, she suddenly realizes that he just may be the man for her. Salt-Water Moon was written as a prequel to the one-two punch that established David French as a theatrical heavyweight in the early 1970s, Leaving Home and Of the Fields, Lately.

Salt-Water Moon premiered in 1985 by Tarragon Theatre in Toronto and has been staged hundreds of times across Canada. The third play of The Mercer Family play cycle, Salt-Water Moon won the 1985 Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Drama, the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, A Hollywood Drama-Logue Critics Award, and an ACTRA Award; and it was a finalist for both the Chalmers Award and the Governor-General's Award for Drama. With its simple setting, cast of two and universally comprehensible emotions, it has been produced constantly in regional, high school, college, fringe festival, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male

What people say:

"A transplanted Newfoundlander, French never strayed far from the rich vein of family lore and tradition he mined to create these classics, including Leaving Home and Of the Fields, Lately. [In The Mercer Family Play Cycle] David French created the Canadian equivalents of Tennessee Williams's characters with their haunting, visceral, essential take on leaving home, politics, love and the eternal drama of families." — The Book of Lists

"A gem of a play, an old-fashioned love story that is as affecting, funny and evocative as a dream." — The Globe & Mail

"This is a lovely play, lovingly written. We've not met the likes of Mary and Jacob on any stage in many a long day. You'll not soon forget them." — Hollywood Drama-Logue

"...as if Brian Friel had been washed up on the other side of the Atlantic." — Time Out London

"A near flawless piece of writing...." — The Montreal Gazette

"Tender as a caress, delicate as a love poem... Tremendous!" — Southam News

About the Author:

David French (1939-2010) was one of Canada's most popular and critically-acclaimed playwrights. He is best remembered for the Mercer family plays, such as Leaving Home, which chronicle the lives of a Newfoundland family with humour and pathos. The Mercer plays have received hundreds of productions across North America, including a Broadway production of Of the Fields, Lately. This quintet of plays has also touched audiences in Europe, South America and Australia. His backstage comedy Jitters has been performed all over the continent, and most of his plays have had successful international runs, including two Broadway productions. In 1989, David French was inducted into the Newfoundland Arts Hall of Honour, and in 2001 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.