The story of the legendary white whale Moby-Dick and its hunter, captain Ahab, who is driven by boundless hatred. Today, the 1851 novel by Herman Melville’s is celebrated as an outstanding postmodern masterpiece. Inspired by the Old Testament, Shakespeare, historical and zoological works, the writer attempts to make sense of the world, of God, humanity, nature, and of how all are interconnected. The travel book with almost one thousand pages recounts breathtaking adventures on the open seas and into the depths of man’s soal and destiny.
Addressing the relationship between man and nature, the forceful theatrical adaptation transforms one of the iconic modern novels into an amazing consonance of animated objects, music and poetic images. The message of the performance is perfectly epitomized in Christian Morgenstern’s quote: “Woe to humanity, should only a single animal have a seat in the Last Judgment.”

A few years ago, Alize Zandwijk (b. 1961), a Dutch stage director, captivated Brno’s theatregoers by her impressive productions of ‘The Cherry Orchard’, ‘The Good Person of Szechwan’, and the music and dance project ‘Golden Heart’ staged by the Theater Bremen ensemble. This year, Zandwijk comes back to the Theatre World Brno festival along with the outstanding actress and visual artist Nadine Geyersbach, who is the co-author of the Moby-Dick adaptation, visual design, and puppets. She excels in the role of the maniacal hunter Ahab. Together with her brother Denis and the brilliant multi-instrumentalist Beppe Costa they conjure up a spectacular panorama of visual and musical components evoking the tense relationship of man with nature.

“A thousand pages in 80 minutes? That’s possible! Nadine and Denis Geyersbach have taken the novel and dissected it to put together individual parts into an intense visual collage with music.”

Iris Hetscher, Weser-Kurier, September 5, 2021