Travelling Light

Travelling Light (2012)

Damien played Motl Mendl / Nate Dershowitz in National Theatre production Travelling Light from 18 January to 2 June 2012. The play had a long run at the National Theatre (London) and on tour – The Lowry (Salford), Grand Theatre (Leeds), Waterside Theatre (Aylesbury), Theatre Royal (Newcastle) UK – and was also broadcast live to cinemas across the world on 9 February 2012 as part of National Theatre Live.

Cast & Creatives

Maurice Montgomery – Paul Jesson
Tsippa, Moti’s aunt – Sue Kelvin
Moti Mendl – Damien Molony
Jacob Bindel, a timber merchant – Antony Sher
Ida, Jacob’s wife – Abigail McKern
Aron, Jacob’s son – Jonathan Woolf
Itzak, Jacob’s son-in-law – Karl Theobald
Anna Mazowiecka – Lauren O’Neil
Josef, foreman at the sawmill – Colin Haigh
Hezzie, a workman – Darren Swift
Mo, a workman – Mark Extance
Rivka, Jacob’s daugher – Alexis Zegerman
Nate Dershowitz – Damien Molony
Little Boy – Nell McCann
Ensemble – Tom Peters, Jill Stanford, Geoffrey Towers, Kate Webster

Actors on film

Teacher – Tom Keller
Rabbi – Harry Dickman
Young woman – Julia Korning
Dying man – Michael Grinter
Reb Gershon – Jack Chissick
Reb Korovitz – Jeffry Kaplow
Doctor – Philip COx
Wife – Norma Atallah
Servant – Jill Stanford
Young servant/Granddaughter – Elsie Mortimer
Yeshiva Boys – Tom Allwinton, Roy Baron, Pablo Carciofa, Daniel Kramer, Henry Markham-Hare, Pip Pearce.

Writer – Nicholas Wright
Director – Nicholas Hytner
Set Design – Bob Crowley
Costume – Vicki Mortimer

Synopsis

The Nicholas Hytner directed stage play tells the story of the birth of cinema through the lives of a Jewish family living in Eastern Europe, via the retrospective projections of main character Motl Mendl, the set turned at times into a silent movie theatre.

In an interview with BBC Radio Newcastle, Damien described Travelling Light as

“a charming, magical, simple tale of love, passion and – what everyone loves – storytelling and the invention of cinema, how cinema could have been invented and a young obsessive ambitious young Jewish boy that got his hands on a camera in the early 1900′s.”