Moby Dick 2012

study guide

2012 / 2013 EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH SPONSORS

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S

yracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that explore and examine what it is to be human.

Research shows that children who participate in or are exposed to the arts show higher academic achievement, stronger self-esteem, and improved ability to plan and work toward a future goal.

Many students in our community have their first taste of live theatre through Syracuse Stage’s outreach programs. Last season more than 30,000 students from across New York State attended or participated in the Bank of America Children’s Tour, Backstory performances, artsEmerging, the Young Playwrights Festival, and our Student Matinee Program.

We gratefully acknowledge the corporations and foundations who support our commitment to in-depth arts education for our community.

Children’s Tour Naming Sponsor

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Lori Pasqualino as “Annabel” in the 2010 Bank of America Children’s Tour: Annabel Drudge... and the Second Day of School.

Photo by Michael Davis

Content collection and portions written by Len Fonte Layout design and portions written by Michelle Scully

Timothy Bond

Producing Artistic Director

Syracuse Stage and SU Drama

820 E Genesee Street Syracuse, NY 13210

www.SyracuseStage.org

Director of Educational Outreach

Lauren Unbekant (315) 443-1150

Manager of Educational Outreach

Michelle Scully (315) 442-7755

Group Sales & Student Matinees

Tracey White (315) 443-9844

Box Office

STUDY GUIDE CONTENTS

4. Production Information 5. Introduction 6. Teaching Theatre

8. Letter from the Director 9. Content and Culture 12. Context and Discussion 16. In the Classroom 18. Sources and Resources 19. Syracuse Stage Season 2012-13

(315) 443-3275

Syracuse Stage is a global village square where renowned artists and audiences of all ages gather to celebrate our cultural richness, witness the many truths of our common humanity, and explore the transformative power of live theatre.

Celebrating our 40th season as the professional theatre in residence at Syracuse University, we create innovative, adventurous, and entertaining productions of new plays, classics and musicals, and offer interactive education and outreach programs to Central New York.

EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH AT SYRACUSE STAGE The Bank of America CHILDREN’S TOUR brings high-energy, interactive, and culturally diverse performances to elementary school audiences.

The BACKSTORY Program brings history to life as professional actors portray historical figures in classrooms and other venues.

ArtsEMERGING takes students on an in-depth exploration of one mainstage season production using a multi-cultural, multi-arts lens.

The YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL challenges students to submit original ten-minute plays for a chance to see their work performed at Syracuse Stage.

The STUDENT MATINEE SERIES provides student with the opportunity for a rich theatrical experience as part of our audience.

PRESENTS

ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY from the book by Herman Melville DIRECTED BY

Alive with a soundscape of 18 authentic sea shanties and performed by an ensemble of nine, this highly physical adaption cuts to the core of Melville’s searing narrative and plays with the fury of a Nantucket sleigh ride. A young man seeks adventure on a whaling vessel and finds himself a pawn in an obsessive pursuit of vengeance that threatens death and destruction for all.

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introduction

Welcome!

As you take your students on the exciting journey into the world of live

theatre we hope that you’ll take a moment to help prepare them to make the most of their experience. Unlike movies or television, live theatre offers the thrill of unpredictability.

With the actors present on stage, the audience response becomes an integral part of the performance and the overall experience: the more involved and attentive the audience, the better the show. Please remind your students that they play an important part in the success of the performance!

A few reminders...

BE PROMPT

Give your students plenty of time to arrive, find their seats, and get situated. Have them visit the restrooms before the show begins!

RESPECT OTHERS

Etiquette Audience

Please remind your students that their behavior and responses affect the quality of the performance and the enjoyment of the production for the entire audience. Live theatre means the actors and the audience are in the same room, and just as the audience can see and hear the performers, the performers can see and hear the audience. Please ask your students to avoid disturbing those around them. Please no talking or unnecessary or disruptive movement during the performance. Also, please remind students that cellphones should be switched completely off. No texting or tweeting, please. When students give their full attention to the action on the stage, they will be rewarded the best performance possible.

GOOD NOISE, BAD NOISE

Instead of instructing students to remain totally silent, please discuss the difference between appropriate responses (laughter, applause, participation when requested) and inappropriate noise (talking, cell phones, etc).

STAY WITH US

Please do not leave or allow students to leave during the performance except in absolute emergencies. Again, reminding them to use the restrooms before the performance will help eliminate unnecessary disruption.

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teaching theatre

Most (but not all) plays begin with a script — a story to be told and a blueprint of how to tell it. In his famous treatise, The Poetics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle outlined six

Elements Drama of

that playwrights are mindful of to this day:

Plot What is the story line? What happened before the play started? What does each character want? What do they do to achieve their goals? What do they stand to gain/ lose?

Theme

What ideas are wrestled with in the play? What questions does the play pose? Does it present an opinion?

Character

Who are the people in the story? What are their relationships? Why do they do what they do? How does ages/status/etc. affect them?

Language Music

What do the characters say? How do they say it? When do they say it?

How do music and sound help to tell the story?

Spectacle

What visual elements support the play? This could include: puppets, scenery, costumes, dance, movement, and more.

Other Elements: Conflict/Resolution, Action, Improvisation, Non-verbal communication, Staging, Humor, Realism and other styles, Metaphor, Language, Tone, Pattern & Repetition, Emotion, Point of view.

ACTIVITY At its core, drama is about characters working toward goals and overcoming obstacles. Ask students to use their bodies and voices to create characters who are: very old, very young, very strong, very weak, very tired, very energetic, very cold, very warm. Have their characters interact with others. Give them an objective to fulfill despite environmental obstacles.

Later, recap by asking how these obstacles affected their characters and the pursuit of their objectives.

Any piece of theatre comprises multiple art forms. As you explore this production with your students, examine the use of:

SYRACUSE STAGE Moby Dick STUDENT STUDY GUIDE

WRITING VISUAL ART/DESIGN MUSIC/SOUND DANCE/MOVEMENT

INQUIRY

How are each of these art forms used in this production?

Why are they used?

How do they help to tell the story?

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teaching theatre

Most plays utilize designers to create the visual world of the play through scenery, costumes, lighting, and more. These artists use

Elements Design of

to communicate information about the world within the play and its characters.

LINE can have length, width,

texture, direction and curve. There are 5 basic varieties: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and zigzag. is two-dimensional and encloses space. It can be geometric (e.g. squares and circles), man-made, or free-form.

SHAPE

FORM is three-dimensional. It encloses space and fills space. It can be geometric (e.g. cubes and cylinders), man-made, or free-form.

COLOR

has three basic properties: HUE is the name of the color (e.g. red, blue, green), INTENSITY is the strength of the color (bright or dull), VALUE is the range of lightness to darkness.

TEXTURE

SPACE is de-

fined and determined by shapes and forms. Positive space is enclosed by shapes and forms, while negative space exists around them.

refers to the “feel” of an object’s surface. It can be smooth, rough, soft, etc. Textures may be ACTUAL (able to be felt) or IMPLIED (suggested visually through the artist’s technique).

APPLIED LEARNING

Have students discuss these elements BEFORE attending the performance and ask them to pay special attention to how these elements are used in the production’s design. Whether your students are observing a piece of visual art (painting, sculpture, photograph) or a piece of performance art (play, dance), allow them first to notice the basic elements, then encourage them to look deeper into why these elements are used the way they are.

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a letter from the education director

Dear Educator, Live theatre is a place for people to gather and experience the joys, triumphs, and sorrows life has to offer through a shared experience.

The Syracuse Stage Education Department is committed to providing the tools to make learning in and through the arts possible, to address varied learning styles and make connections to curriculum and life itself. It is our goal in the education department to maximize the theatre experience for our education partners with experiential learning and in-depth arts programming. Thank you for your interest and support!

Sincerely,

Lauren Unbekant Director of Educational Outreach

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about the play

About this Production...

Moby Dick was adapted by Julian Rad from the original text by Herman Melville. It is a play with music, featuring songs adapted from traditional sea chanties. As an adaptation of a notoriously lengthy classic, the production leaves out the famous digressions into philosophy and the world of whaling. Bringing the work down to a manageable playing length also required the loss of some memorable characters and incidents. Characters missing from the adaptation include the preacher “Father Mapple”, “Pip” the cabin boy, and “Fedallah”, the ancient Asian harpooner secretly brought aboard by “Ahab”. For the Syracuse Stage production, many characters are doubled, with only “Ishmael”, “Queequeg”, “Ahab”, and “Starbuck” played by single actors.

Julian Rad (playwright)

Playwright and actor Julian Rad produced and starred in the film The Four Corners of Nowhere, which was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 1995.

Moby Dick had its workshop presentation in NYC in July 2002. The 2003 Ohio Theater production in New York City was the first Off-Off Broadway show to be nominated for Drama Desk Awards in the play and director categories. Rad’s documentary feature, The Franklin Cover Up, was the winner of the Roy W. Dean Grant in 1997. Julian Rad is the founder of Works Productions, a film and television production company.

Cast of Characters

Ishmael A young man who signs aboard the whaler, The Pequod.

Ahab Captain of the Pequod, a "grand, ungodly, godlike man," with a wooden leg. He’s obsessed with finding the white whale.

Starbuck the First Mate, a Quaker family man Landlord Peter Coffin owner of the Peter Coffin Inn. Queequeg The physically imposing Polynesian harpooner.

Mr. Peleg the owner of the Pequod. Elijah, a mad prophet.

Perth the ship’s blacksmith Stubb the Second Mate Flask the Third Mate Carpenter a member of the crew Captain Boomer anEnglishman with a detachable artificial arm.

He has lost the limb to the White Whale.

Captain Gardiner the Captain of the Rachel, searching for his son lost to Moby Dick.

Sailors, townsfolk, etc.

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about the author

HERMAN MELVILLE was born into a prominent New York family on August 1, 1819. His father’s death in 1932 left the family in genteel poverty, often dependent on the kindness of relatives, and young Herman, the third of eight children, had to leave school at fifteen. When he couldn’t find work on the Erie Canal, he went to work as a bank clerk. In 1839, Melville, who had already begun writing, shipped out as a cabin boy on a merchant ship sailing from New York to England. Upon his return, he tried a number of jobs, even traveling out West in search of gainful employment. He quickly came back East, and, in 1841, the twenty-one-year-old signed on for a whaling voyage to the South Seas.

His time in Polynesia during this time formed the basis for Typee, his first novel, which recounts a young man’s adventures among the cannibalistic Typee tribe. Omoo, his second book takes place in Tahiti, where Melville found himself after taking part in a mutiny on an Australian whaler. After several voyages, Melville returned to the States to find the family’s fortune

Photograph of the plaque outside 104 East 26th street, New York—former residence of Herman Melville

greatly improved.

Typee and Omoo were controversial but popular successes, and Melville embarked in earnest on a writing career, producing novels, short stories, and literary criticism with regularity, but with varying success with readers. With his brother’s sudden death, his writing supported the entire family. In 1847, he married Elizabeth Shaw and began a family of his own.

His friend Nathaniel Hawthorne proved to be a strong influence on Melville’s next work, an expansive

literary examination of whaling and obsession. When Moby-Dick, or The Whale, was published in October 1851, it was greeted with shrugs from the critics and poor sales.

After a number of personal and financial setbacks and a cooling of his friendship with Hawthorne, Melville wrote darker fiction and turned to verse. Herman Melville died on September 28, 1891. His last unfinished novel, the allegorical Billy Budd, was published posthumously in 1924.

noVels • TYPEE: A PEEP AT POLYNESIAN LIFE (1846) • OMOO: A NARRATIVE OF ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH SEAS (1847) • MARDI AND A VOYAGE THITHER (1849) • REDBURN, HIS FIRST VOYAGE (1849) • WHITE-JACKET; OR, THE WORLD IN A MAN-OF-WAR (1850) • MOBY DICK; OR, THE WHALE (1851) • PIERRE; OR THE AMBIGUITIES (1852) • ISRAEL POTTER: HIS FIFTY YEARS OF EXILE (1855) • THE CONFIDENCE-MAN: HIS MASQUERADE (1857) • BILLY BUDD (WRITTEN BETWEEN 1888 AND 1891; PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY 1924).

• OTHER STORIES, SKETCHES, AND JOURNALS • THE PIAZZA TALES (1856), INCLUDES “THE PIAZZA,” “BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER,” “BENITO CERENO,” “THE ENCANTADAS, OR, ENCHANTED ISLES,” AND “THE LIGHTNING-ROD MAN” • THE APPLE-TREE TABLE AND OTHER SKETCHES (1922), CONTAINS 10 PIECES FIRST PUBLISHED IN PERIODICALS BETWEEN 1850-56 • JOURNAL UP THE STRAITS, OCTOBER 1, 1856-MAY 5, 1857 (1935) • JOURNAL OF MELVILLE’S VOYAGE IN THE CLIPPER SHIP, METEOR (1929). VERSE • BATTLE-PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR (1866) • CLAREL: A POEM AND PILGRIMAGE IN THE HOLY LAND (1876) • JOHN MARR, AND OTHER SAILORS; WITH SOME SEA-PIECES (1888) • TIMOLEON (1891) • POEMS UNPUBLISHED DURING MELVILLE’S LIFETIME ARE INCLUDED IN LATER COLLECTIONS AND SELECTIONS. SYRACUSE STAGE Moby Dick STUDENT STUDY GUIDE

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context & discussion

Whaling

As they approached the New World, passengers on the Mayflower watched whales play off the bow of the ship. The English settlers also observed natives shore whaling, spearing and landing creatures that had come too close to the beach.

Using native labor and skills, the North American whaling industry began in earnest in New England in 1650. From this point until the American Revolution, Nantucket, an island thirty miles off the Massachusetts coast, was the capital of the industry. Soon, New Bedford, Massachusetts, the starting point of Melville’s tale, overtook Nantucket in importance. By the nineteenth century, New England was a leader in whaling, with eight out of ten of the world’s whaling boats launched from New Bedford.

Although the management of the whaling industry was dominated by New Bedford Quakers, the ships held ethnically diverse crews. Alongside sailors from across Europe toiled Native Americans, Black Americans, and Polynesians. There was even a black captain, Absolom Boston of Nantucket.

A whale can weigh as much as eighty tons. In fact, they are bigger than any dinosaur that ever lived. Aboard a whaler, not one part of the earth’s largest mammal was wasted. A captured whale was immediately skinned and the fat was rendered in furnaces onboard ships that had become floating factories.

If the catch was a sperm whale, the valuable waxy spermaceti oil, used to make candles that burned smokelessly, was harvested from the beast’s head. Other whale oil was used to lubricate machine parts or in cosmetics. The soft bone-like structure of Baleen whales provided material to be used in many different ways, most prominently for stays for women’s corsets. Flexible baleen was the forerunner of today’s plastics. Products harvested from whales were an important part of everyday life.

As demand grew for the products created by the industry and the population of whales decreased, whalers wandered the world in search of the leviathan and voyages became years long.

When Melville published Moby Dick (or The Whale) in 1851, it was dismissed by the critics and ignored by the public. However, by 1853, the whaling industry itself has reached a golden age.

Because of profits from whale oil, New Bedford becomes the richest city per capita in the US, and was called “The City that Lit the World.” With the rise of the transcontinental railroad, San Francisco surpassed New Bedford as the whaling capital.

SYRACUSE STAGE Moby Dick STUDENT STUDY GUIDE

Then it was over. Women’s fashion abandoned the corsets that required baleen supports and stays.

With the discovery of petroleum and the rise of the plastics industry, the thirst for whale oil and baleen slowed and then ended.

Today, the remnants of the vast whaling industry are the targets of environmentalists. The 1986 International Whaling Commission ban on commercial whaling permits countries to hunt whales only for scientific purposes. This controversial provision has allowed the hunting of the minke whale and Antarctic minke whale, smaller species of the baleen whale.

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context & discussion

Instant Moby Dick!

The epic in eight chapters -- just add water!

Although the 135-chapter long Moby Dick, with its exploration of cetology and detailed look at daily life on ships at the height of the American whaling industry may seem daunting for the classroom, portions of the novel, supplemented by the Syracuse Stage production of Julian Rad’s adaptation, can provide a springboard for discussion of many important themes, including Romanticism, religion versus science, the environment, and the American spirit.

Chapters 1 & 3: “Loomings” and “The Spouter-Inn” Beginning with the famous line “Call me Ishmael,” Melville identifies the novel’s narrator with the Biblical outcast son of Abraham and introduces Queequeg, the tattooed cannibal mystic who becomes his friend.

Chapter 26 “Knights and Squires” We are introduced to the crew of The Pequod, which led by Quaker first mate Starbuck, is a microcosm of the diverse 19th century America.

Chapter 27 “Ahab” We meet the “grand, ungodly, god-like man” who captains the Pequod.

Chapter 34 “The White Whale” Ahab’s obsession with the White Whale emerges, and the Leviathan is examined as the ambiguous symbol of both innocence and evil.

Chapters 133-135 “The Chase” The exciting climax as Ahab faces his nemesis.

Adaptations Since its critical elevation as an American classic in the twentieth century, Moby Dick has become a

touchstone for American culture. The novel has been adapted several times for stage and screen. The white whale was first hunted onscreen by John Barrymore in the silent The Sea Beast in 1926, but the first faithful film adaptation was John Huston’s 1956 film starring Gregory Peck as “Ahab”. For television there was a 1998 miniseries starring Patrick Stewart and another 2010 miniseries starring William Hurt. A notable stage incarnation is Orson Welles’ Moby Dick--Rehearsed. The novel Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund, considers the plight of the wife that Ahab leaves behind.

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context & discussion

Sea Shanteys

As a play with music, Moby Dick celebrates the sea shantey, the traditional music of life at sea.

Strongly influenced by the songs sung by slaves in American fields and factories, some sea shanteys are pure work songs, boisterously urging sailors to their labor: In South Australia I was born Heave away haul away In South Australia round Cape Horn Bound for South Australia Heave away you rolling kings Heave away haul away Heave away oh hear me sing Bound for South Australia Others, like “Alabama John Cherokee”, have a less celebratory focus on social injustice:

Another type of shantey, like “Captain Bunker,” which Melville quotes in the novel, directly addresses the whaler’s mission: Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand A viewing of those gallant whales’ That blew at every strand Oh your tubs in your boats, my boys And by your braces stand, And we’ll have one of those fine whales, Hand boys over hand!

So be cheery my lads, may your hearts never fail!

While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!

A whole other type of sea shantey is aspirational, extolling the virtues of the girl left behind or dreaming of the girl in the next port.

John Cherokee was an Indian man Alabama John Cherokee He run away every time he can Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee They put him aboard a Yankee ship Alabama John Cherokee Again he gave the boss the slip Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee They catch him again and chain him tight Alabama John Cherokee And starve him many a day and night Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee Nothing to drink and nothin’ to eat Alabama John Cherokee He just fall dead at the boss’s feet Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee So they bury him by the old gate post Alabama John Cherokee The very same day you can see his ghost Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee, way, hey, yah Alabama John Cherokee SYRACUSE STAGE Moby Dick STUDENT STUDY GUIDE

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in the classroom

Activities Debate: Whaling and the Environment.

Current whaling nations give passionate explanations of why they should be allowed to continue this activity.

Students should explore these explanations as well as the environmental ramifications of whaling and conduct a classroom debate.

I’m off to the store.

Need anything?

Whaling trips took men around the world and lasted for years.

Research the provisions and equipment needed for such a voyage and create a shopping list.

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of What?

Sea Chanties extol or bemoan the sailor’s lot. After exploring the traditional songs, students can write their own works songs or raps about the life of a student.

Resources For the Classroom There are several excellent non-fiction sources for classroom exploration of whales, whaling, and the lives of commercial fishermen.

“Into The Deep”, an episode of the PBS series The American Experience provides a detailed look at whales, whaling, and Moby Dick. The film and its excellent teacher’s guide and resources can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/whaling/player/.

A tragic collision with nature ends the lives of New England fishermen in the non-fiction bestseller The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. The book and the excellent film version directed by Wolfgang Peterson and starring George Clooney share many themes with Melville’s masterpiece.

Another excellent companion piece for classroom study of Moby Dick is the History Channel reality series, The Deadliest Catch, which follows the lives of crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. An introduction and video can be found at: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/deadliest-catch/.

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sources and resources

TEACHING THEATRE/ARTS TheatreTeachers.com http://www.theatreteachers.com/ ArtsWork.com http://artswork.asu.edu/ ChildDrama.com http://www.childdrama.com/lessons.html Educational Theatre Association http://schooltheatre.org/ Kennedy Center http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/lessons.aspx Viola Spolin http://www.spolin.com/ Princeton Online Art Lesson Plans http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/Files/elements.htm

SOURCES AND ONLINE RESOURCES History of Whaling http://history1800s.about.com/od/whaling/a/histwhaling.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_the_United_States http://history1800s.about.com/od/whaling/f/whaleproducts01.htm http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/06/a_glimpse_ into_whaling_history/ Herman Melville http://www.melville.org/ http://www.mobydick.org/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/whaling/player/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick http://cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/MobyDick.html Sea Chanties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_shanty http://www.ancientmarinersct.com/chantey.html http://www.sailorsongs.com/alabama_john_cherokee.html

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Bring the whole family to

at Syracuse Stage 820 E. Genesee Street Syracuse, NY 13210

Saturday, December 1 - Noon & Saturday, December 8 - Noon All tickets $8 Box Office: 315.443.3275 A Thousand Cranes is the moving true story about the effects of war on the life a 12-year-old Japanese girl named Sadako, and how, through her spirit of hope and determination, she became an inspiration for generations to come. With an eye toward the future, this year’s production of A Thousand Cranes will incorporate recent events in Japan and connect them to the spirit of Sadako and her message of hope.

Performed in striking visual terms with puppetry and scenery, A Thousand Cranes offers an extraordinary opportunity to share a culturally rich theatrical experience with your students. The director, designers, performers, and production crew are students and professionals from Syracuse University Department of Drama and Syracuse Stage.