Last night was our Moby in the Belly of Labaree performance. This performance basically consists of staged readings of "Moby-Dick". We had a very wide variety of choices from the very first chapter, beginning with "Call me Ishmael," to the final chapters of the chase. Steffi and I chose to do some chanteys straight from the book for the performance, as my acting skills leave much to be desired and I was busy doing stage manager things anyway. We had a very creative white whale costume, constructed by a Williams-Mystic student a few years ago. What a great costume. It definitely added to the silliness of some of the chapters. Everyone had some sort of costume or theatrical element for their scene. We even had two of my housemates do a scene with Queequeg and Ishmael as Bert and Ernie. Hilarious! All in all, it was definitely a success and was a wonderful way to finish up "Moby-Dick".
Other things I've learned about Moby-Dick since reading it: the title of the book is hyphenated whereas the name of the whale is not; Melville is obsessed with Shakespeare, like seriously obsessed (Captain Ahab is essentially King Lear or some other classic tragic hero); Melville also borrows shamelessly from other authors and books, like Willy Shakes, the Bible, Chase's narrative of the sinking of the Essex, among other things. Interesting tidbits I did not know. But now "Moby-Dick" is done and we're on to the next book, "Country of the Pointed Firs." At some point, I'll post the reading list for this semester. It's been a very all-encompassing look at maritime literature and most of the books we've read have been thoroughly enjoyable.
What was your costume??
ReplyDeleteSince I was stage managing, I was in my blacks. :)
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