If you enjoyed the theater experience “Time for Joy”, there is a good chance that “Moby Dick” will give you much of the same feeling. In any case, director Johannes Holmen Dahl has taken several of the actors in “Time for joy” with him on a kind of theater tour to find out how the masterpiece “Moby Dick” can become stage art. PEACE FOR LIFE: Hard work on the qualifying boat. Sometimes they have to row for their lives. Photo: Pernille Sandberg The kinship with “Time for joy” is easy to spot: the same open, dark stage space. Peder Varkøy is still with us from the organ stool, but this time he has been joined by percussionist Elisabeth Mørland Nesset and cellist Kaja Fjellberg Pettersen. An excellent choice. There are also games with water, slide scenes, and lighting that in several places reminds of “Time for joy”. But in “Moby Dick”, the interaction is characterized by hard physical work, weather and wind. Despite everything, they are at sea. Scourge and revenge Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick” is about Captain Ahab’s hunt for the great, white scourge that once took his leg. The driving motive is revenge, but everyone who has sought hire on board the whaling ship “Pequod” has his reasons for getting to sea. READY FOR REVENGE: What makes one willing to face death to get revenge? The answer lies enigmatically hidden with Captain Akab (Ane Dahl Torp) in the performance “Moby Dick” at the Norske Teatret Photo: Pernille Sandberg It is nevertheless Captain Akab (Ane Dahl Torp) who drives them into her project, the journey into uncertainty, the hunt on what one does not know what is in the hope of revenge, answer or redemption somewhere up there. And actually that is what Det Norske Teatret is about: What kind of forces can drive one into such an insistent tunnel vision project as Captain Akab’s hunt for anguish? What makes one willing to sacrifice everything for something like this? The vision does not provide answers, but it allows the audience to join the journey. FINE PENGUIN: The shoe player ensemble, here in a dress and latex version, are strong, steady and fragile together. At the front is Thea Lambrechts Vaulen, who plays the narrator Ismael. Photo: Pernille Sandberg Scrape and peel And sometimes things get messy here. They have scratched and peeled in “Moby Dick”. For those who are looking for a story here, get a fragment, a rough outline, but not the depth and richness found in the novel. Captain Akab is just as mysterious as in the book, just as absent, and where in the novel one might wonder whether it is Akab or Moby who is the main character, it is rather the community on board that is about in the theatre. This means that the story slips in between, that one as an audience loses the thread, especially in scenes where the intensity is low. It is as if the foresight follows the sea in its shifts between storm and calm. Scenes can go from being completely silent to being whipped up by the drums of Elisabeth Mørland Nesset. INTERACTION: It’s beautiful when director Johannes Holmen Dahl and scenographer Nia Damerell tackle “Moby Dick” on the theater stage. Photo: Pernille Sandberg The rhythm spreads further into the shoe players, and suddenly there is a big throw, suddenly there is wind and rain and storm on the stage. And this interplay, the scenes where everything hangs so clearly together, is the strongest thing about “Moby Dick”. The clear aesthetic choices such as the hoisting of a huge sail, such as the scenes where they row or catch a quail or the scenes where one of the crew is hoisted up the mast to scout, are sometimes chilling. And in these intense scenes, the vision becomes more of an exploration of man and nature, man and forces. Or the man and the great leader. FULL STORM: It’s stormy, raining and windy at sea in the hunt for “Moby Dick”. Photo: Pernille Sandberg Blæs av garde The presentation is uneven, but fascinating. One can indulge in the visuals or get annoyed at where the story went in all the wind. You can see that the people’s needs are the same: They need to wash themselves, need closeness, understanding and a friend even on the dangerous sea. That tells “Moby Dick” as theater well. For those who feel cheated by history, it is only a matter of picking up Melville’s literary masterpiece one more time. news reviews Title: “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville City: Det Norske Teatret Performance period: 19 January–9 June Production: Bjørn Alex Herrman Dramatized by: Johannes Holmen Dahl and Sara Tangenes. Stage version into Nynorsk by Tove Bakke Director: Johannes Holmen Dahl Set designer and costume designer: Nia Damerell Lighting designer: Norunn Standal Composer and sound designer: Alf Lund Godbolt, with contributions from the musicians Playwright: Anders Hasmo Cast: Ane Dahl Torp as Captain Akab Thea Lambrechts Vaulen as Ismael Vetle Bergan as Prophet Elias, crew Kyrre Hellum as Stubb Sara Khorami as Starbuck Terese Mungai-Foyn as Queequeg Khalid Mahamoud as Flask Kenneth Homstad as Host, crew, Captain Gardiner, Captain on Bachelor
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“Moby Dick” at the Norwegian Theater – Reviews and recommendations
