Reviews 2008
Reviews 2008
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written and directed by Morris Panych
Stratford Festival, Studio Theatre, Stratford
August 17-October 18, 2008
"Waiting for Moby"
As a general rule, the greater the literary work the more it resists adaptation to another genre. Purely on spec, the notion of adapting Herman Melville’s 1851 masterpiece “Moby Dick”, one of the greatest but most difficult of all American novels, to the stage and as mime besides would seem ridiculous. Yet, the Stratford Festival commissioned Morris Panych, who won such acclaim for his mime adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat” to stage, to attempt to repeat his success with Melville’s epic. Theoretically, this time he has an advantage because he and “creative associates” Wendy Gorling and Shaun Amyot have real dancers to work with in this movement piece instead on merely actors who had to learn how to move in time to music in “The Overcoat”. Yet, the piece fails because it has not been fully enough re-imagined for the stage.
At under two hours including intermission, Panych has time to do little more than skim the surface of the plot. The problem is that the plot itself is very simple and is not the reason why the novel is great. Captain Ahab has had his right leg bitten off by the infamous great white whale Moby Dick and assembles a crew to carry out his personal vengeance by tracking down and killing the beast. Melville uses this quest tale to explore themes of destructive obsession, free will versus fate, idealism versus pragmatism, human rights versus tyranny and the folly of man’s attempts to conquer nature. Moby Dick comes to be seen as omnipresent and eternal. In the novel the fictional story itself is interleaved with nonfiction chapters on cetology that have the double function of exploring the world that Moby Dick is part of while demonstrating the irony that all the scientific knowledge in the world cannot explain the mystic fascination of this one beast.
By focussing solely on the plot Panych’s adaptation thus can be superficial at best. Yet even in this task he fails. Artistic works should stand on their own, but here, if viewers happened not to know the story of the novel (which, unfortunately is increasingly the case), they would have little or no clue as to what was being depicted. In Panych’s primitive mime language, to explain the purpose of the voyage David Ferry as Captain Ahab points to his stiff right leg (it’s not even clear that it is ivory) and then sticks his arms out straight before him separating them and then closing them together with fingers curled. To the uninitiated this could be an imitation of a shark, a giant clam or a falling portcullis.
What Panych does depict is the friendship of Ishmael (Shaun Smyth) and cannibal Queequeg (Marcus Nance) and their joining the crew of the Pequod. There they meet the intellectual first mate Starbuck (W. Joseph Matheson), the second mate Stubb (Matt Cassidy), the third mate Flask (Eddie Glen) and the mysterious Fedallah (Shawn Wright), who seems to have an evil influence over Ahab. Panych makes much of Ishmael’s forsaking his own religion to worship the idol Queequeg carries with him. But Starbuck’s Hamlet-like attempt to kill the Claudius-like Ahab comes out of nowhere since Panych has not shown Starbuck’s growing outrage at Ahab’s monomaniacal quest. Panych spends more time on the comic rivalry between Stubb and Flask and Flask’s imitations of Ahab. This may be “comic relief” but has nothing particular to do with the themes of the novel.
Panych’s most inventive addition to the cast are three lithe dancers--Lynda Sing, Kelly Grainger and Alison Jantzie--who are labelled as Sirens in the programme. While thy do have this function of luring sailors away from their duties, Panych also has them represent the winds, the currents, sperm whales and Oceanids or nymphs who preside over the sea. The play opens with a view of the drowned crew of the Pequod being tended to by the “Sirens” who move them backstage. This is as close as Panych gets to representing nature as eternal and as indomitable as death. These three are the only characters who consistently dance rather than simply move to the music. On the occasions when the Sirens dance with the male dancers in the company, the effect is magical since finally as dancers the human body is used to its fullest potential. One can’t help but wonder why Panych doesn’t give over this mime-as-theatre idea for ballet, which is its natural extension, except that he is not a choreographer.
Still, Panych does achieve several remarkable images beautifully timed to the crashing chords of Debussy’s “La Mer” and “Nocturnes”. In one the male cast climb three ladders on movable platforms. As the music builds the men slowly lift their long shirt tails over their heads creating the image of sails on a three-masted schooner. In another sequence, in the novel the first successful hunt of a pod of sperm whales, the crew capture one (played by a Siren), fix it to the inside of one of the ladders and viciously hack away at it with a variety of weapons. the men’s shirts fall from them as the Siren’s lets fall her shirt, representing the skin and blubber of the whale and walks away.
What Panych signally fails to depict is Moby Dick itself. I had expected that the three Sirens would form a single unit or that the three ladders would be used or that the entire cast but Ahab would form the whale to represent Ahab against the world. But no, when the climactic moment comes all Ahab does his thrust his harpoon at the centre of the compass on the floor of Ken MacDonald’s set. There’s no becoming entangled in his harpoon line, being dragged down with the beast--nothing. After the thrust he merely becomes the floating corpse we saw at the beginning. After all the build up and the success of depicting the sailing ship, this is distinctly disappointing. Perhaps Moby Dick, who comes to seem a godlike being cannot be represented, but if so why agreed to adapt such a story to so physical a medium as the stage in the first place?
Unlike “The Overcoat”, where the selections from Shostakovich’s music were crammed with incident, here there seems to be rather too much filler for such a short piece. There is too much mimed rope hauling, peering through telescopes into the voms and stumbling to and fro on the yawing deck to mark time in Debussy’s music until a coming event can match the coming musical climax. Meeting with other ships and gazing at maps may be exciting in the novel but become tedious on stage.
The cast acts as one throughout as they must. Smyth face registering he transition from innocence to experience is an ideal Ishmael. Nance make Queequeg an intriguing character not a simple cliché of a “noble savage”. Ferry attacks his role with passion but those who imagine Captain Ahab as lean and gaunt and eaten up from within by his obsession will be disappointed. Wright’s demeanour is so distinct in the four roles he plays you won’t know Father Mapple, Fedallah, Peleg and the Captain of the Jungfrau are played by the same actor until you read the programme. Given the minimal set lighting designer Alan Brodie is principally responsible for giving the piece its brooding atmosphere of immanent danger.
Panych’s Moby Dick is a misfire. Debussy’s music itself is consistently more nuanced and exciting than anything we see on stage. If François Girard had not already done in the Canadian Opera Company’s 2005 production of Wagner’s "Siegfried", a monster made up of a pyramid of actors suspended from each other would have made a good Moby. Yet, even if that problem could be solved, only the full physicality of dance, not mere mime, can match the sensuousness of Debussy’s music.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: David Ferry as Ahab. ©David Hou.
2008-08-23
Moby Dick