With metatheatrical stage adaptations of literary classics almost as commonplace today as cell phones and email, Orson Welles’ Moby Dick — Rehearsed feels like it could have been written last week and not way back in 1955. It’s also as thrilling a production as I’ve seen at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum.

Welles’ thoroughly modern conceit is that a company of actors have assembled to perform the Herman Melville classic as “a sort of reading, or rather dress rehearsal without costumes or scenery,” in other words precisely the set-up that countless contemporary playwrights and directors have employed to create theatrical magic with audience imaginations standing in for multi-million-dollar budgets. (The 39 Steps comes immediately to mind as one of them. Feel free to add to the list.)

And so a troupe whose members Welles’ refers to as “The Cynical Actor,” “The Serious Actor,” “The Young Actress,” and “The Old ‘Pro’” (to name just a few) get down to putting up their interpretation of Melville’s tale of a sea captain (Gerald Rivers as Ahab) out to seek revenge on the killer whale that bit off his leg and left him hobbling on a prosthetic lower limb made out of (can you say ouch?) whalebone.

Serving as our narrator throughout is Ishmael (Dane Oliver) of “Call me Ishmael” fame, who along with the imposing South Sea Island harpooneer known only as Queequeg (Michael McFall) boards ship in search of adventure only to find himself the sole survivor left to tell the tale.

Also along for the decidedly storm-tossed ride are first mate Starbuck (Colin Simon), second mate Stubb (Tavis L. Baker), third mate Flask (Melora Marshall), Native American Tastego (Dante Ryan), African tribesman Daggoo (Isaac Wilkins), and about-to-go-loco cabin boy Pip (KiDane Kelati), among others.

Needless to say, Captain and crew are soon to find themselves facing challenge after challenge topped by one humdinger of a typhoon before boarding whaleboats, harpoons in hand, to face the fiercest of aquatic foes, all of the above achieved on the Theatricum Botanicum stage with nothing more than benches and ropes and other assorted accouterments. (Unfortunately, photos apparently taken before any of this had been staged reveal absolutely nothing of what director Ellen Geer and her crackerjack design team have accomplished making it a crying shame that no one thought to set up a reshoot.)

Welles’ free-verse script has a Shakespearean air about it, not necessarily conducive to maintaining an audience’s interest when characters are declaiming about this, that, or the other, but with the next action sequence just minutes away, even folks who drift off a bit in the afternoon heat will find their attention reawakened lickety-split.

Geer, easily the summer’s busiest director with four Theatricum Botanicum productions currently running in rep, proves also to be one of its most inspired, eliciting particularly powerful performances from Oliver at his most swashbuckling and charismatic, Rivers at his most commanding, and an absolutely stunning Kelati as gone-bonkers Pip.

Indeed, there’s not a weak link in an uber-talented, uber-athletic cast completed by Tim Halligan (Peleg, Carpenter), Julia Lisa (Young Actress), Jacob Louis (Elijah), and Franc Ross (Director, Mapple), and ensemble members Louis Baker, Matthew Domenico, Colin Guthrie, Matt Mallory, Cavin Mohrhardt, and Matthew Pardue.

Beth Eslick costumes the cast in a mix of contemporary garb and suggestions of period wear while Dante Carr provides a plethora of multi-purpose props.

Sound designer Marshall McDaniel enhances the adventure and suspense every step of the way with dramatic effects and original music, and the same can be said for lighting designer Zach Moore once the afternoon sun sets behind the Topanga hills.

Dane Oliver is assistant director. Kim Cameron is stage manager and Sydney Russell is assistant stage manager.

Moby Dick’s most recent screen adaptation (a three-hour-long 2011 mini-series) cost Hollywood $25,000,000 to make, which is probably just about what its Broadway budget would be if producers were to pull out all the production design/special effects stops.

Theatricum Botanicum and Orson Welles achieve equivalent excitement on a comparative shoestring thanks to a director’s ingenuity an audience’s ability to imagine.

The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga.
www.theatricum.com

–Steven Stanley
August 25, 2019
Photos: Ian Flanders

Tags: Herman Melville, Los Angeles Theater Review, Orson Welles, Theatricum Botanicum