American literature’s most annoying classic was inspired by real-life events. Herman Melville based his epically digressive Moby-Dick on an 1820 incident in which a monster whale turned on a Nantucket whaling ship, the Essex, and rammed it—twice!—causing it to sink into the Pacific Ocean.
We meet Captain George Pollard and first mate Owen Chase; young “greenhands” Owen Coffin, Charles Ramsdell, and Thomas Nickerson; as well as an array of others, from boatswain and purser to carpenter and boat steerer (a job that, interestingly enough, did not entail steering the boat). These were the names and titles of men who actually sailed aboard the Essex on its final voyage. Forbrich tags each of them with a dominant characteristic. Pollard: kindly and cerebral. Chase: jealous, brutal, and apt to challenge authority. Ramsdell is feisty; Coffin, an innocent whose name is all too likely to be his destiny. The subsidiary souls include a brownnoser, an oaf whom Chase loves to bully, and three black seamen: a cynic, a Christian, and a guy who just wants to do his job as best he can. Oddest of them all is Nickerson, a 14-year-old cabin boy whose fits of poetry may be prophetic.
Through 10/11: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM Theater Wit 1229 W. Belmont 773-975-8150theaterwit.org $15-$30
