At Hudson Hall, Moby Dick in Two Glorious Hours
If you had told me that I would be gobsmacked by the excerpt of Irish actor Conor Lovett’s one-man adaptation of "Moby-Dick," performed last fall at Hudson Hall’s Proprietor’s Ball, I would have rolled my eyes, at least internally. But here I am, writing a preview of the full production by the Irish theater company Gare St Lazare Ireland coming up at Hudson Hall on October 4-6, and finding myself wanting to superlatives I don’t normally use — riveting, phenomenal, unforgettable — and that was after seeing just 15 minutes of the work.
In other words, this is a Rural Intelligence Recommends.
It’s the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birth, and the author is being acknowledged in various ways this year. In Pittsfield, Mass., home of Arrowhead, Melville’s farmhouse where he wrote "Moby-Dick," the Berkshire Historical Society threw a birthday party. Hudson Hall is tying into the year of Melville with programs revolving around the history of Hudson’s merchants and whalers. “When we read that this year marked Melville’s 200th, we knew we had to do Gare St Lazare Ireland’s 'Moby-Dick,'” said Tambra Dillon, executive director of Hudson Hall.
This production of "Moby-Dick" is adapted for the stage by Judy Hegarty Lovett and Conor Lovett, whose world-touring company is, says The New York Times, “the unparalleled Beckett champions.” Dedicated to the novels, prose and plays of Samuel Beckett, the Lovetts were inspired to adapt the American classic after reading just two chapters. How they were able to condense the 135-chapter tome into a two-hour, intermissionless solo show is only part of what makes this interpretation of both Melville and Conor Lovett’s such genius.
The set is nearly empty, but Lovett’s sonorous voice is accompanied by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh on the hardanger d’Amore, a 10-string fiddle. “Ó Raghallaigh is one of Ireland’s most exciting traditional Irish musicians,” said Hegarty Lovett. “His presence as a witness to Conor’s telling of the tale of Ishmael is as important as his beautiful and sensitive fiddle playing.”
Dillon has been wanting to present this "Moby-Dick," which premiered in 2009, since some years ago when the Lovetts came through Hudson on the their way to Vermont. She’d known them from her years in Dublin where she managed the city’s cultural district.
“It’s a book that’s on my ‘list’ for years and I really wanted to see Gare St Lazare’s production,” she said. “With Melville’s bicentennial this year and his great-great-grandson — Allan Melville Chapin — living nearby, the opportunity to bring Conor and Judy’s theater company to Hudson seemed almost fated,” Dillon said.
Last month, performance artist Shanekia McIntosh presented a collaborative performance piece weaving the themes of the whaling industry’s brutality, the black migration experience and the birth of the Save the Whales movement. On October 17, Carl Whitbeck, Jr. will give a free talk in partnership with the Hudson Area Library’s Local History Speaker series about the city’s beginnings as a commercial center.
Elswehere, I sheepishly admitted to never having read "Moby-Dick," and suggested that a "Moby-Dick" Declamation Society, to read the novel aloud, might spur me — and others like me — into action. But first, Gare St Lazare’s version calls. Let’s all go listen.
Moby Dick
Adapted for the stage by Judy Hegerty Lovett and Conor Lovett
Hudson Hall
327 Warren St., Hudson, NY
Oct. 4-6, 2019
Tickets: $35
(518) 822-1438
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