Moby Dick: An Irish stage production of Melville’s novel

Photo of Conor lovett

The Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland brought Moby Dick to town for a week on November 7. This company is actually misnamed given that it is known for one-person shows played by the brilliant Conor Lovett. Lovett and his wife Judy Hegarty Lovett, the company’s director, specialize in Samuel Beckett’s works. Without a home-based theatre, they tour the world, playing cities large and small as well as universities.

The world of Moby Dick, while as grim, humorous, and grotesque as Beckett’s, was nevertheless a departure for the Lovetts. However, they succeeded in extracting the essence of Herman Melville’s epic Moby Dick for the theatre. They whittled the huge novel down to one hour and fifty minutes of continuous playing time. Conor Lovett shares the stage with composer and violinist Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh, although the two rarely interact. The music has much of the eerie quality of the story.

And it is the story as performed by Conor Lovett that carries the evening. The production is spare; the set consists of a table and two chairs. Lovett – slender and wiry – is dressed in a black sweater buttoned up on one shoulder and black pants, a costume suggestive of a sea farer. It begins slowly; the musician plays for several minutes as Lovett stands in front of the table in semi-darkness, seemingly lost. As he speaks the famous opening line – “Call me Ishmael – in a low-keyed, anxious, and hesitant voice the lights come up on him. His Ishmael bears the psychic scars of the survivor.

The actor has an intense hypnotic presence and an occasional idiosyncratic delivery as when he extends his vowel sounds. Strangely, his native Irish cadence, which he keeps for Ishmael, seems fitting. His voice, tone, and accent change for his fearsome Captain Ahab. One of the performance’s most startling moments is the expression of Ahab’s rage at the great white whale as Conor shrieks Moby Dick’s name over and over, continually building the sound. Ahab and Ishmael are the most vivid of the many characters he enacts, as indeed they are in the novel.

Hegarty Lovett’s blocking is simple and restrained, rendering every gesture Conor Lovett makes significant. His Lecoq training is visible in his eloquent corporeality. The couple’s love of and careful handling of the text creates a memorable theatrical experience. While an acquaintanceship with the novel is an asset, it is not a necessity.

ArtsEmerson and Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland

Present

Moby Dick

Adapted for the Stage by Conor Lovett & Judy Hegarty Lovett

From the Novel by Herman Melville

Directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett

Performed by Conor Lovett

Live Musical Accompaniment Composed and Performed by Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh

Lighting Design by Aedin Cosgrove

At: Paramount Center, Jackie Liebergott Black Box, Boston, MA