See
more of the story
"Ignorance is the parent of fear," the title character confides to us in "Ishmael," director Leo Geter's illuminating new stage adaptation of "Moby-Dick."
And vengeance is a child of blindness, he might also have added.
The tale of Capt. Ahab, the whaler consumed by revenge after his leg is bitten off by the white whale he obsessively pursues, illustrates how the desire to even a score can inspire courage as well as cause a man to lose sight of all else that is valuable in life.
That story is well-told in "Ishmael," which opened over the weekend at Minneapolis' Jungle Theater. A one-person play with music, the 90-minute one-act premiered at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Mont., last March.
The same artistic team has brought it to the Jungle, including actor Jack Weston, who plays narrator Ishmael, Capt. Ahab, tattooed cannibal Queequeg and other characters from Herman Melville's sprawling 1851 novel, accompanied by the musical trio of Kevin Kniebel (banjo), Jim Parker (mandolin) and Nate Sipe (fiddle).
Their folksy songs are something of a tip-off. While Weston's various characters move about the wooden implements and ropes of Sarah Bahr's ship-deck set (which benefits from Bill Healey's chiaroscuro lighting design), "Ishmael" is essentially an old-time campfire story.
A charismatic performer who draws us in in conspiratorial tones, Weston uses vocal pitches, subtle gestures and mood swings to sketch his characters. He paints more than physical portraits, giving us psychological keys to the men in this 19th-century narrative.
When he first tells us about Queequeg, for example, we fear the dated nature of what is to come. After all, Ishmael's would-be bunkmate represents the exotic, strange "other," a man who traffics in human heads. But Weston gives us sympathetic renderings of all the characters, especially when Ishmael delivers a revelatory thought that puts a contemporary audience at ease: "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."
Artfully telescoping the story, Geter's adaptation is crisp and wryly funny at times. The director-playwright leaves out some of the cultural complexities that animate the longer work (cabin boy Pip is not much of a presence). And the pacing is uneven. While "Ishmael" is gripping at the start and the end, it goes slack in the discursive middle. Even so, there's enough to be compelling.
What's also heartening is that Melville's classic, which helps us to peer into the human soul, continues to be relevant. "Ishmael," which is as much about lighting up one's own psyche as vanquishing some beast out there, offers lingering questions to audiences weaned on Oprah and Dr. Phil. What is the thing in your life that makes you blind to all that is good and rewarding? Are you your own Ahab?
rpreston@startribune.com
612-673-4390 Twitter: @rohanpreston
