Originally staged as Moby Dick – Rehearsed, Orson Welles’ adaptation of the infamous 1851 novel by Herman Melville is ambitious, magnificent and supernatural. Premiering in 1955, the play has had many iterations since; each varying in their commitment to the minimalist, Brechtian nature of the original play text as well as theatricality and sense of magic enfolded in the work.
In 2018, Sport For Jove’s production of Moby Dick is a controlled and at times slow-moving performance that lights up with fervorous energy when the tension climaxes. In a salute to the original staging of the production, Director Adam Cook has the ensemble onstage as we enter the theatre; they move around casually but with purpose as they prepare for the performance. This is perhaps the only reference to the metatheatricality of the play but it is a strong and wise decision. What follows instead of a hyper-aware, meta performance is an energised, precisely choreographed work that makes use of an incredible ensemble and several direct asides to the audience.
Mark Thompson’s set design whilst not overtly conceptual, is precise and very well considered. The use of high ladders in the black-box venue of the Reginald Theatre allows a beautifully fluid incorporation of levels and movements into the performance whilst also keeping the ensemble onstage and activated for most of the performance. Similarly, the exposure of sheet metal, boxes and crates that are transformed into musical instruments and sound effects pays homage to the Brechtian nature of the initial work whilst breathing in a sense of active theatricality.
There are exquisite moments created with the symbolic set elements under Gavan Swift’s lighting design, however it does at times feel too abstract to hold onto. Ryan Devlin’s sound design is breathtaking and does so much in creating the eerie, vacuous experience of the open sea. In collaboration with Thompson, the acoustics of the set design as well as the deliberate exposure of parts of the stage all contribute to this otherworldly and ethereal sense of their solitude and danger against the sea and maddening Captain.
Danny Adcock is most suitably cast as Captain Ahab and delivers a gut-wrenching and at times poignant performance of a man destroyed not by the thing, but by fear of the thing and himself. Tom Royce-Hampton gives a sensitive and authentic performance as our narrator, Ishmael and Wendy Mocke pulses life and energy through the theatre every time she speaks as the wise and enigmatic whale-hunter, Queeqeg. The company is comprised of an incredibly strong and vigorous ensemble who do not falter once in their energy and
commitment to the work. Mark Barry does a wonderful job shifting between characters whilst sustaining a separation and distinction between them all and Francesca Savige delivers a powerfully moving performance as the brave and righteous Starbuck.
To a contemporary Australian audience, it may be assumed that whilst the work is tho
ughtful and contemplative, it does not have great significance anymore. As the play unfolds however, this is proven completely untrue with a strong underlying theme of xenophobia, dictatorship, pride and the valuing of one life over another.
Moby Dick runs at the Seymour Centre, Reginald Theatre until August 25.
M. Osborn, Theatre Now
