Moby Dick: ‘an engrossing melange of gig and epic theatre’

Moby Dick at the Oxford Playhouse from Tuesday June 18 to Saturday 22

Review by JON LEWIS

HERMAN Melville’s 1851 novel Moby Dick is the story of the fanatical captain Ahab (Guy Rhys) from Nantucket, whose one aim in life is to kill the white whale that bit off his leg on a previous voyage.

The tale is retold in retrospect by the only survivor of the hunt, Ishmael (Mark Arends), stranded in the sea after Ahab’s whaler, the Pequod, proved to be too small to withstand being rammed by the ageing whale.

Armesto’s 2013 adaptation of Moby Dick for Simple8 Theatre Company has been thrillingly revived by the relatively new artistic director of the Royal & Derngate Theatres Northampton, Jesse Jones, formerly of Bristol’s Wardrobe Ensemble.

With a cast of actor-musicians that includes composer Jonathan Charles, Jones fuses simple and effective physical theatre and miming with foot-tappingly melodic sea shanties and folk music to turn Melville’s tragedy into a captivating, life-enhancing narrative about nautical brotherhood and obsessional fantasies.

We don’t see the messianic, bearded, one-legged Ahab until late on in the drama, but we hear a lot about him.

He runs his ship like a cult leader, but his crew, led by the sensible Starbuck (Hannah Emanuel), follow him out of respect rather than belief.

Ahab will reward any crew member with a first sighting of Moby Dick with a gold doubloon but when Ishmael wins the coin, there is no celebration.

Ahab has already ignored the pleas from another ship’s captain to help him search the seas for his teenage son who was lost to the whale that day.

This is not a quest that will end happily as the ocean is not big enough for both Ahab and Moby Dick.

Kate Bunce’s simple staging of scaffolding and planks, and a big sheet backcloth at the rear of the stage, convinces as the deck of the whaler, and of the portside inn earlier in the drama. Performers weave above and below the staging, playing their instruments.

Hazel Monaghan as crew member Elijah is one of many superb multi-instrumentalists in the cast creating an engrossing melange of gig and epic theatre.

A moving and exciting revival.