Moby-Dick first rehearsal and design presentations
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Moby-Dick first rehearsal and design presentations
Dave Malloy’s “Moby-Dick” and Racism
okay not to be negative because it’s all sort of a wait-and-see at this point but, from the most recent information, there are definite issues with how race is being handled in Dave Malloy’s “Moby-Dick” musical and there seems to be a lot of sensitivity to valid criticism around the production.
It’s hard to define specifics since it obviously hasn’t opened yet so I won’t attempt that, however there are some things that have been confirmed that I don’t feel will be handled well based on what we know about the show so far.
I’m not asking people to boycott this show — that would be silly— I’m simply asking folks to go in with a critical eye. Just like I’m not going in as a Moby-Dick book stan, don’t go in as a Dave Malloy stan. If this is indeed meant to be a critical piece about racism (and other issues), then let’s treat it as such! Let’s analyze its strengths and weaknesses not just musically but as a commentary!
With luck, perhaps some of the issues I foresee will be corrected before the show opens or during previews and there will be no need for extensive concern, but I think it’s an important distinction regardless that, by all accounts, this musical is meant to be a statement so let’s try to figure out what it’s saying and how well it’s saying it and judge it based on that, not just based on how lovely the music is or how amazing the performances are.
Oh man, I keep meaning to like…be more present online…but I have not been. I have like, three half-started posts about the Amnesty finale that I keep meaning to finish, but they keep devolving into just…feelings.
BUT that is not what I am here for today, I am here today because I went to the ART’s open house yesterday! And it was very Moby-Dick heavy! Dave was there! I fucking love him, as I have established many times in the past!
There was a tour of the costume department and prop shop! They showed us some sneak-peeks at the Moby-Dick costume and props they were working on! We got to touch about fifteen prototypes of whale blubber! They were all very unsettling!
Also, not Moby-Dick specific, but it was also just an interesting look at how a regional theatre works. They specifically mentioned a couple things they did that were cosplaying tricks because they can’t really afford all of the professional tools that are available in the amount/on the scale that they need them.
Back to Moby-Dick: rehearsals start this week in New York! The ART couldn’t finagle a closer rehearsal space, which is a bummer for everyone involved and part of the reason they are building their new building across the river.
Casting will be announced this week! I spied a few ~*~familiar names~*~ when snooping around the costume shop (sanctioned snooping!) and I am very excited to see the rest!
Dave also explained that he’s not actually going to be in the show because he cut the part of Melville altogether. They laughed a bit about how, since he made some comment about singing as Melville at the AMNH event, all these theatre websites ran headlines that he was ~*~Officially Going To Be Playing Melville In Moby-Dick At The ART~*~ and how weird it is to have every comment scrutinized and turned into breaking news.
The creative team is a delightful reunion of Dave, Rachel, Or, Mimi, and Bradley 💜
There was a cute thing where the Executive Director mentioned that the ART thinks of Dave as their in-house writer because they’ve now staged Beowulf, Three Pianos, Ghost Quartet, Comet, and now Moby-Dick.
The cast will all be PoC, except Ahab.
I believe the first mates are all WoC?
He talked a lot about how the themes of the show are rooted in de-centering whiteness and what that meant for him, as a white man writing the show, and it delves into race and climate and how that intersects with what things are like in America today.
They played a recording of “The Pacific” and talked about the genesis, how it went from being a Melville song to a Melville and Ishmael duet, to a flat out Ishmael song, and now it’s settled as a duet between Ishmael and Queequeg, who are explicitly lovers in the musical.
Multiple times, the Executive Director who was interviewing him begged him not to say the running time out loud because she was afraid it would deter people from getting tickets, so…….looks like we’re in for a long night!
All in all, it was a beautiful day to be wandering around Cambridge, a great event promoting the ART, and worth dragging my ass across the river despite getting up very early and having errands to run and a podcast to record throughout the day! And I am SUPER stoked to actually see this dang thing on stage this winter! (They were offering half price tickets at the box office during the open house and as soon as the woman checking us in mentioned this, we looked at each other and said, “Should we go buy more Moby-Dick tickets?”) (We did do that thing.)
Hi, I'm a member of the Moby Dick team...I just wanted to let you know, with the hope that you might spread this to the Tumblr community, that it has been incredibly frustrating for us to see our work judged based on incomplete information of a piece still in process. At no time in the show's development have the races of the actors been taken lightly; quite the opposite. It was always our intention to explore empathy and race, and how people experience the stories of people of other races...
... Public performances and sometimes inaccurate casting announcements came at various times within this creative process. And while we have ultimately landed on a more traditional casting in regards to the characters of color in the show, I just want it to be known that the perceived "missteps" within this process were not borne out of ignorance or racism, but rather out of a sincere desire to directly explore the legacy and complexity of race in America, both in Melville's time and our own. Thanks
I should clarify that my main point in the post this ask was sent regarding wasn't actually to criticse the show; it was to note how Dave/the creative team were willing to admit to being fallible, and continually working on improving their creation. I said that I'm hoping for a final product that's the result of a learning process. And so, I absolutely advocate for treating a work-in-progress as such.
But nonetheless!
Public performances of any in-progress work are always a double-edged sword. They're great opportunities to engage with and receive feedback from an audience, but naturally, all judgement can only be based on what the creators have chosen to reveal. Yet, making the choice to publicise unfinished work comes with the expectation that people can and will still react to it within that amount of context. It's not unreasonable for people to react to publicly revealed content for this musical, especially a concert-length amount of it, and especially for fans of the book, and POC fans of the book, to voice their opinions on how the musical's treatment of race reflects on the book's characters. Feeling that their own intentions are being misjudged may be frustrating for a creative team, but feeling that the source is being misjudged is also frustrating. For an in-progress adaption intending to honor its source material, mature critical reaction from fans of the source is not only entirely appropriate, but valuable. Voicing concerns about racism isn't a personal attack on anyone involved, it's a genuine and fair reaction rooted in wanting the best outcome possible for both creators and fans.
As I intended to put across before, I do believe the creators of this musical have sincere intentions and desire to do the right thing. That assessment isn't based on whether they've acted in a misinformed way, but on what I've seen of their ability to take onboard criticism in order to work towards the highest integrity creation they can.
Bringing this blog back out from where it's been mouldering on the shelf to mention Dave's Malloy's interview the other day at A.R.T.
dawnlt Tonight was a magical and such an out of body experience. Working with so many gifted and marvelous human beings this week is mind boggling. AND WE SANG BENEATH THE BLUE WHALE! Such an incredible experience. Dave Malloys mesmerizing music and book, Rachel Chavkins enchanted direction and Or Matias' superb music direction cast the perfect spell. I'm TOTALLY a history and archeological geek. I believe artists are excavating constantly. Thank you to Alonzo and his team at the museum and the wonderful folks at A.R.T. (Emma, Mark, and more). Come out and catch us in Boston this winter. We'd love to see you. Moby Dick at A.R.T! You never know who you might see. Tonight Lin Manuel Miranda just happened to show up. Lol. This is my life. Smh #blessed #working #actorlife#nycactor #amnh #mobydick#davemalloy #rachelchavkin#mapple/gardiner/boomer #abundancemindset#mindfulmeditation
The American Museum of Natural History and A.R.T. will stage excerpts of the new adaptation, helmed by Rachel Chavkin, ahead of the world premiere in Boston.
“Composer Dave Malloy will perform the role of author Herman Melville in upcoming staged excerpts of his new musical adaptation of Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick. [...]
Joining Malloy will be Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli (Jekyll & Hyde) as Ahab, Nick Choksi (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) as Ishmael, Starr Busby (Octet) as Starbuck, Kalyn West (The Prom) as Stubb, Anna Ishida (Henry VI: Parts 1 & 2 ) as Flask, Andrew Cristi (Pasek and Paul’s A Christmas Story) as Queequeg, Matt Kizer (The River Bridge) as Tashtego, J.D. Mollison (Octet) as Daggoo, Ashkon Davaran (Skittles Commercial: The Musical) as Pip, and Dawn L. Troupe (Brothers ParaNormal) as Mapple.
Or Matias serves as music director and leads an ensemble of musicians, featuring Malloy (piano), Jamie Mohamdein (bass), Hiroyuki Matsura (drums), Alon Bisk (cello), Pinky Weitzman (viola), Curtis Hasselbring (trombone), and Paul Jones (saxophone/flute).“
dawnlt Concert underneath this guy this weekend and I couldn't be more excited. It's really a night at the museum. So cool. #blessed #mobydick #mnh #nyactor#concertunderthewhale #actorlife
annaishida In the belly of the whale #MOBY-DICK
From Starr Busby’s ig story
Hi there! I was wondering where you were pulling the chapter titles from the tracklist from? I'm just about done with the novel and I'd like to try and get an idea of what Dave's working with~ Thank you!!
Hey! I’m going off the tracklist from the most recent workshop, at The Public Theater:
Obviously because it’s a workshop tracklist it might change a little, but it’s been pretty solid for a while. The only change I know of is Sunset/The Pipe is just called Sunset now.
(Also - I think, based on an old tweet of Dave’s that “Sextet” is based on the chapters The Quadrant, The Musket, The Doubloon, Queequeg In His Coffin, The Forge, and maybe Ahab’s Leg and The Grand Amada. But those are less certain.)
Every book chapter a song is named after: Knights And Squires (Ch 26 + 27)
Since most of the (most recent) tracklist is named after chapters of the book, I’m going to attempt to work through the whole of the show this way, talking a bit about my thoughts on each chapter’s translation into a song. Based on the tracklist chronology rather than the book chronology. Skipping the songs we’ve already heard, for obvious reasons.
Also fairly obvious, but even though I’m using the chapters to imagine the songs, I naturally can’t be sure how closely they’ll follow the text of that specific chapter (see, The Pacific, which actually follows completely different chapters).
(I’ve making these actually shorter, and just some dot-pointed thoughts rather than going through everything in the chapter, because I’d still like to write them down but also don’t have the energy, so).
[MAPPLE] / God spoke to Jonah in his head / God spoke to Jonah in his head / Filled his heart with words of dread / And Jonah believed every word he said / God spoke to Jonah in
I’ve already posted the lyrics for all the songs that’ve been previewed thus far under #mdlyrics, but I’m going to eventually add them onto Genius, so I can annotate them a little better, so they’re a bit more readable, and because I get bored
Every book chapter a song is named after: Loomings (Ch 1)
Since most of the (most recent) tracklist is named after chapters of the book, I’m going to attempt to work through the whole of the show this way, talking a bit about my thoughts on each chapter’s translation into a song. Based on the tracklist chronology rather than the book chronology. Skipping the songs we’ve already heard, for obvious reasons.
Also fairly obvious, but even though I’m using the chapters to imagine the songs, I naturally can’t be sure how closely they’ll follow the text of that specific chapter (see, The Pacific, which actually follows completely different chapters).
TW for brief mention of suicidal ideation
Loomings is very different from Extracts, in that I can pretty easily envision it fitting into a show of Dave’s, and imagine what it might be like as a song.
This chapter is our first direct introduction to what to expect from the body of this book, and it has four-ish main sections:
1. Ishmael introduces himself as the narrator recounting this story, and explains his general path in it (going to sea because it’s what he does when he’s exceedingly depressed)
2. He dwells on mankind’s inevitable attraction to water, and that this is due to how it represents the unknowable to us
3. He details his reasoning for why he always goes to sea as a simple sailor, as opposed to a passenger or a crew member of higher rank
4. He describes his “choice” to go on a whaling voyage in particular as actually designated by fate. He does, however, then explain his personal attraction to going on the voyage, that could make it appear like free will to him.
So, there is a lot being set up in this chapter. I can very much feel this becoming my main issue to accept (i.e. get my head out of my ass) with reconciling the adaptation with the book overall - there is so Much in Moby Dick and there is only so Much you can fit into a musical. Even a 4+ hour one. But yeah, that’s seen on a smaller scale with Loomings, in how it sets up a lot of background information about Ishmael and how he thinks, as well as starting some thought process about a number of important themes for the book (fate vs free will, capitalist and power dynamics, the limits of mankind’s knowledge… all that important shit). Where the song draws its focus from will just depend on what Dave chooses to emphasise the most.
I'll go through the chapter, and mention where I connected things to either comments Dave's already made about the musical, or to his writing in general.
Most of the adaptions of Moby Dick tend to just tell the story of a guy who goes out and hunts a whale, and that kind of misses the point of the book, I think. Melville's wrestling with much, much larger things than that, he's wrestling with god, and fate, and determinism - and also with America. So, very much this piece is about looking at Moby Dick through the lens of 21st century America, and looking at the failures of democracy, and capitalism, and white supremacy, and what that has done to America. How we're on this sinking ship. And with climate change as well. It's a pretty dark piece. I've spent the morning listening to various climate change podcasts, and just thinking about that, in this sense that we are in a burning building, or in a sinking ship. It's very much about all those things.
Dave Malloy, discussing his Moby Dick musical in a WNYC interview
Moby Dick musical workshop cast: Dawn Troupe
Dawn Troupe played Captain Gardiner/Father Mapple in the Public Theater workshop, and previewed the musical’s opening song “The Sermon” at the Jack Alive concert:
She may have also played Pip and/or the Captain of The Bachelor, though I’m not 100% certain. I’m not aware of Dawn having been involved in any of Dave’s other work.
Dawn is an actor, singer, and artist with an extensive performance history. Most recently she has been a part of Pan Asian Repertory Theater’s “The Brother’s Paranormal”, a play about the intersection of Thai-American and African-American experiences, displacement, and spiritual beliefs; and Ubuntu Theater’s experimental, sci-fi play “The Pool of Unknown Wonders: Undertow of the Soul”.
Every book chapter a song is named after: Extracts
Since most of the (most recent) tracklist is named after chapters of the book, I’m going to attempt to work through the whole of the show this way, talking a little bit about my thoughts on each chapter’s translation into a song. Based on the tracklist chronology rather than the book chronology. Skipping the songs we’ve already heard, for obvious reasons.
Also fairly obvious, but even though I’m using the chapters to imagine the songs, I naturally can’t be sure how closely they’ll follow the text of that specific chapter (see, The Pacific, which actually follows completely different chapters).
Unfortunately, Extracts is possibly the trickiest song to think through, and so I gave myself a bad starting point. My reason for saying this is because it’s not a legit chapter, but an epigraph, so it takes place before we have any introduction to any of the characters who populate the body of the book, the setting, or the plot. Its interpretation in an adaption is thus… less obvious.
I can’t think of any adaption that’s actually decided to include Extracts in some form (potentially fallible statement, mind). Straight away, this is an example of how Dave’s musical is trying to embrace and express the quirks of the novel that make it so unique, but often get smoothed over in adaptation.
Because, Extracts is pretty quirky/unique as an epigraph, for two main reasons, either of which I could see providing a basis for the choice to adapt Extracts into a song: