A review of the 2020 Rogue
Theatre production of Moby Dick as adapted by Cynthia Meier and Holly
Griffiths
How does one comment on a
play that so audaciously attempts to distill the essence of arguably America’s
greatest novel, Moby Dick, into about two and a half hours. Suffice it to say that this production doesn’t
cover all of the hundreds of pages of the novel, but it
sure gives it a run for its money. Let me say upfront that it is totally
engrossing, intense, dense, inventive,
visually entrancing, and acted with the kind of total conviction that
only a close knit and dedicated company can provide.
The adapters, Cynthia Meier
(also the director) and Holly Griffith chose to give us a good deal of
Ishmael’s narrative in a straight forward stage manager style and then allow
the dramatic scenes to flow seamlessly into focus. The novel is pretty much devoid of
female presence, but Meier and Griffith come up with a trio of women to enhance
the theme as well as portray multiple characters, sound technicians, and
invisible stagehands in the Japanese Noh tradition. The women are personified as the Three Fates
of Greek mythology, who spin the threads of human destiny. In antiquity Clotho
spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the
thread (thus determining the individual’s moment of death). In this production they are called the
Severer, the Spinner, and the Measurer. Meier notes in the playbill that the
word “fate” appears 23 times in the novel and the inclusion of the Fates as
characters in the play seemed true to the spirit of Melville’s thinking about free
will vs determinism. From my point of view this decision was crucial to the
success of the drama on stage since it turned a philosophical argument into
visible theatrical conflict. While opening the cast to more female players, it
also led to many of the most moving visual effects. To Meier and Griffith go
the accolades for coming up with this vehicle.
Like many of the audience who
have read the novel, my exposure to Moby Dick dates to an undergraduate
literature course some fifty years ago. A more recent memory is of the movie
star Gregory Peck standing at a mast and raging at the elements like a mad King
Lear. The Ahab of this production, as
portrayed by Joe McGrath, was a more compact physical presence and definitely not
wildly attacking the universe or his nemesis the great white whale at every
moment. McGrath’s Ahab seemed more
reserved, more cool, more rational, more practical in his pursuit. “Make me a
new leg” he says to the carpenter and let’s get on with it. Finally, though, he still
wants his revenge at all costs and like many tragic heroes before him he finds the cost
to be fatal. I must admit to being not quite so happy with Aaron
Shand’s Ishmael. I wish he had brought a
more nuanced basket of vocal shading to his narrative. Was he expecting too
much from the music and lighting to deepen the emotional coloring in his
narrative? He held the ground, but I was
not feeling a compulsion to listen to him.
While speaking of music let
me give Russell Ronnebaum’s musical direction and composition a large shout out. Accompanied by
percussionist Paul Gibson the live music
provided a constant underscoring that helped to merge the voices, the choreography,
and the music into an operatic whole. We were seated right next to the
musician’s visible position and can attest that they literally became cast
members. At one point Ronnebaum was
timing the live action while tapping a drum cradled on his chest with his left hand
and also playing the piano with the other
hand. Stupendous!
Among other members of the cast,
I found Ryan Parker’s Starbuck and Jeffrey Baden’s Queequeg to be particularly
worthy of mention. And Owen Saunders, as
the youngest member of the ill fated crew, made me shed a tear as he was
enclosed in a sad but loving embrace by Patty Gallagher’s Morta. Though not given many lines a good deal of the
fluid choreography of Daniel Precup fell
to the movement patterns executed by the three fates-- the Ms’s Gallagher,
Booth, and Griffith. The Oriental theatre and Mary Zimmerman once again provided
the impetus for the striking use of billowing fabrics together with lighting to
manufacture the illusion of giant whales
entrapping ropes, and the seething
ocean. These effects, although produced by
minimalism, easily embodied the profundity that Melville was intending.
Throughout this production Meier’s
stage pictures are varied and masterful. These include among many “Thar she blows” shouted from the crow’s nest
to the crew below and the remarkable illusion of a thrown harpoon delivered to
the hands of a Fate and then carried off stage toward an unseen target. I was also taken by the progressions from day
to night to dawn while the crew becomes ever more weary under the pressures of
heat and hunting. The ensemble was king
here. Their focus was supreme. Each pull on an oar, or rope, or their laying
down to sleep, or their freezes to shift back to the narrative seemed impeccable. Their physical control and their concentration came right down to tiny manifestations like
a mouth open suspended in the midst of a word, a hand held high with finger pointing, a body tensed and held caught in the action of pulling on a
rope.
We are left to think about all
that has befallen Ahab and his crew. The biblical parallels are both telling
and ironic. We experience the tale of Jonah and the whale at the beginning and
complete it with a flood that drowns all but the survivor who floats to
salvation on the coffin of a non-Christian. There are many threes to think about. There are the three
Fates and the three chances to spear the
mighty whale. I was also reminded of the
three witches in Macbeth which allows us to end with a full complement of the
tragic ironies that befall the obsessed from Oedipus to Macbeth to Ahab. At the
end their hubris sucks them all down. At the deadly yet beautiful end of this production Ahab and crew surrender to the enfolding billowing arms of the sea.
Nothing remains but a bleached white carcass on a far flung shore.
Jim De Young
January, 2020
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