Moby Dick and the Adirondacks
Long ago there were whales at the edge of the Adirondacks, but it wasn’t till last year that I saw one myself—the same day our trail was blocked by a bull moose, another creature I’ve yet to see here. This wild kingdom was on Gaspe peninsula, Quebec. The whale left a huge impression, as did Moby Dick. I can’t pretend to have read this engrossing however longass 1851 book, but I listened to it on tape during that trip, and it took another week to finish it. So it was as unexpected as a water spout to spy a poster announcing that Pendragon Theatre, in Saranac Lake, is staging the story this weekend.
Pendragon’s Web site has an explanation. “Moby Dick Rehearsed is a play that attempts to turn the 800-page novel into a two-hour play,” says director Karen Kirkham of Dickinson College. “That in itself is a feat to admire. Orson Welles's 1955 play is little known. Even less known is Welles's repeated opinion in interviews later in life that the play ‘is my finest work—in any form.’”
The show is at 7:30 Friday and Saturday, November 20 and 21, at and 2 p.m. Sunday, November 22. Tentative performances in December are Dec. 4 at 7:30 and Dec. 6 at 2 p.m. The production will tour schools and arts centers around the region until March. Tickets are $20 for adults and $16 for seniors and students; $10 for age 17 and under. Pendragon is at 15 Brandy Brook Avenue. For information and reservations, contact Pendragon Theatre (518) 891-1854 or pdragon@northnet.org.
A 1930 edition of Moby Dick illustrated by Rockwell Kent, who lived in Ausable Forks, is credited as a factor in the novel's rediscovery. You can see Kent's powerful pen and ink drawings at this link to the Plattsburgh College Foundation and Art Museum, to whom many of Kent's works were bequeathed by his widow, Sally Kent Gorton. The 1930 printing was first offered as a limited edition of 1,000 copies in three volumes held in metal slipcases. AntiQbook is offering a set for $9,500—something for the Christmas list.
Cover of the 1930 Chicago, Lakeside Press edition of Moby Dick, illustrated by Rockwell Kent
5 Comments:
Here's my Moby Dick story.
In the mid-1980s I was on the hippy trail in southern Europe with a girlfriend when I became engrossed in Melville's book.
Obsessed. Outside the train window, Italy and Greece flashed by.
She sat opposite me in the train car, her mood downshifting from hostility to loathing, while I lost myself in the world of Ishmael and Queequeg.
So here's a plug for actually reading the book.
First, don't do it when you're supposed to be maintaining a romance.
The way to approach it I think is as an essentially modern thing - think Joyce or DeLillo, not Henry James -- with lots of meta weirdness and essayistic asides.
(Parts of it also remind me of Kundera and Ondaatje.)
Seeing the story refracted through Orson Welles' imagination just adds another layer of coolness to the mix.
-Brian, NCPR
Brian, I can relate to the spell it casts, in sort of an opposite way. I was scraping, acid-treating, waterproofing and painting a basement while listening to this book. All I recall of what should have been a tedious experience is being carried away by the Pequod.
PS, Less literary, but also some parallels to "The Wire." Anybody else think Sgt. Jay Landsman is modeled on Stubb, the second mate? Both have a vulgar, sarcastic and hilarious coaching style, yet their crews respect them.
I've read Moby Dick more times than I care to recall, having taken four or five American Romanticism courses in college... I tend to appreciate the aspects of the book when Melville turns into a marine biologist and writes about the anatomy of a whale and whatnot... Mary, you might be on to something with the Stubb/Landsman theory, and I don't think that's less literary at all -- in fact, I think exploring the ways our modern literary ventures (television, theater, film, etc.) draw upon the classics just adds to the discussion. As an aside, I just started re-reading the Complete Works of Sherlocke Holmes and I'm completely giddy over it...
You guys… Go see the play! It is amazing, full of energy and beautiful writing and fine acting. Methinks you digress tooo much!
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