By Karl Levett
News Contributing Reviewer
January 14, 2009
There's something heartwarming about a midwinter festival that salutes Herman Melville, an American literary hero if there ever was one. After previously paying homage to Poe, Twain, and Hawthorne, the small but enterprising Metropolitan Playhouse this year provides a cornucopia of works illuminating diverse aspects of Melville's life and literature. The salutation is divided into six different programs or "voyages," each presented four times; these range from Melville's actual words to fantastical meditations on those words. Any enthusiast hungry for Herman should hurry to the Metropolitan Playhouse.
Melvillapalooza: Voyage B is a good example of the fantastical, being made up of two contrasting one-acts inspired by Melville but taking him into dizzy postmodern territory. The first of these, Ishmael and Ahab Mon Amour, written by Michael Bettencourt and directed by Christian Ely, begins where Moby Dick ends. When the white-suited whale (David Eiduks) spits Ahab (Doug West) back onto the beach, the peg-legged captain finds he is totally controlled by the beast, who pronounces "I am the God you made me out to be!" His last command to Ahab is to locate Ishmael and find forgiveness. Discovering Ishmael (Geoff Barnes) wandering with a noose around his neck, the pair find themselves in a kind of existential hell created by the whale. While each of the performers conveys the intensity of the piece, Bettencourt's writing is foggy with metaphor and wobbles uneasily between poetics and gallows humor -- "Ishmael’s been turned to fishmeal," for example.
The second offering, Mr. Melville's Playhouse, written and directed by David Lally, is immediately accessible. Mr. Melville (Justin Klose), closely modeled on Pee-Wee Herman, conducts a children's television program, and on his show Mr. Melville introduces famed characters that Herman Melville created. Among those we meet are Bartleby (Andrew Firda), still preferring not to; Pierre (Trent Carson), Mrs. Glendinning (Amy L. Smith), and Lucy Tartan (Rachael Palmer-Jones), all being truly ambiguous; and Captain Ahab (Steven Lally) and Billy Budd (John Adams), adding sea salt for flavor. Playwright Lally can never quite organize the jolly mayhem he has wrought, but there are some neat touches. These include Moby as an offstage DJ, Mrs. Glendinning pressing every male in sight to her ample bosom, and the finale: the enactment of Melville's first meeting with Hawthorne, here played out as Pierre and Billy Budd kiss and embrace. All good clean fun played by an enthusiastic troupe.
© Backstage 2009