The Moby Dick Blues

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The Moby Dick Blues is nothing short of a working-class opera for the Anthropocene—equal parts Trainspotting and The Perfect Storm, churning with fury, addiction, and mythic ambition. In Michael Gorman’s daring reimagining, Melville’s epic is filtered through the hard truths of the contemporary opioid crisis, reframing Captain Ahab as a tragic addict and the White Whale as a haunting symbol of narcotic oblivion. The reframing lands with seismic force, compelling us to reconsider not only Herman Melville’s obsession-driven narrative, but our own self-destructive relationships with nature, legacy, and escape.

A weary fisherman laments, “We shouldn’t be taking these kinds of risks, just to make a living.” It’s a line delivered with the weight of generations behind it—and one that anchors this sprawling, genre-defying new musical in the raw realities of the present. Gorman, both writer and creator, sets his ambitious tale in a weatherworn New England, merging the mythic force of Melville’s Moby Dick with the all-too-modern scourge of substance addiction,  both for its impact on the addicts and, more poignantly, for the ones the addicts leave behind.

This is no museum piece: the opera pulses with life through a kinetic score that blends blues, spoken word, rap, and rock, turning the stage into a modern-day whaling ship adrift in the wreckage of addiction and ecological collapse. Gorman’s libretto serves not just as storytelling, but as indictment and elegy, charting the generational toll of a New England fishing community in crisis.

The story’s mythic scope stretches across time—past and future, memory and prophecy—populated by the ghosts of mariners and the living casualties of a system collapsing in on itself. When a young sea captain enters a Faustian pact with a fisherman-turned-drug-dealer, the opera descends into the moral abyss at “the crossroads”—a place where delusion, desperation, and tradition collide.

Bold, jagged, and emotionally raw, The Moby Dick Blues isn’t just a reinterpretation—it’s a reckoning. This is opera as social critique, myth as mirror, and theater as an urgent call to conscience.

Here, Captain Ahab is not merely the monomaniacal seafarer, but reimagined as a tragic addict, he is utterly consumed by the unattainable white whale—recast as a chilling metaphor for drugs and the unrelenting pursuit of escape. Across two generous acts, Gorman crafts a stage world where the epic and the intimate collide: characters caught in cycles of trauma and recovery sing, dance, and speak their truths with aching urgency. The result is a daring theatrical voyage—messy, moving, and deeply humane—that seeks to navigate the murky waters of legacy, loss, and redemption.

The score of The Moby Dick Blues crashes over the audience like a tidal wave—raw, unapologetic, and bristling with urgency. Rock, pop, blues, and bluegrass bleed into one another, conjuring an atmosphere as volatile as the ocean itself. There are unmistakable echoes of Guns N’ Roses in the jagged edges of the music, with Michael Gorman’s sharp, unsparing lyrics riding high on the soaring compositions of Joe John Battista and The B-Flat Blues Band. Performed live with ferocious energy by Battista on lead guitar, Kavi Gasper on keys, Ron Raymond on bass/pedal and lap steel guitar, and Zianni Orange’s thunderous drums, the music pulses with the lifeblood of the production.

Battista, who also directs, proves once again why he’s one of the most electrifying figures on the New York stage. The Moby Dick Blues becomes a masterclass in stagecraft under his vision. Each scene unfolds with visceral clarity, shaped by evocative tableaux, wrenching physical sequences, and ghostly shadow puppetry that give the piece an eerie, mythic undertow. The sea itself becomes a character—ever-present, ever-threatening—thanks to an ingenious scenic, credited to The Forty Hour Club, that makes poetic use of platforms and fishing boats.

Sevin Ceviker’s lead choreography and Mackenna Goodrich’s song choreography deliver several exhilarating numbers, pulsing with urgency and grit. Lighting designer Christopher Akerlind floods the stage with a palette of bold, expressive hues, deftly mirroring the narrative’s shifting emotional tides. And Angela Wendt’s costume design, equal parts salt-worn realism and imaginative flair, grounds the production in a world where myth and reality blur. The result is an exhilarating, unflinching odyssey—both visually stunning and emotionally searing.

A sweeping ensemble brings The Moby Dick Blues to life with fervor and emotional depth, populating Gorman’s sprawling seascape with a gallery of vivid, soul-baring performances. The cast—featuring Alex Notkin, Teddy Lytle, Jim O’Brien, Andrew Ryan Perry, Sarah MacDonnell, Gabbi Beauvais, Daniel Yaiullo, Shuhei Kinoshita, Sevin Ceviker, Sam Rothermel, Kristy Beauvais, Jessica Phoenix, CREDLE, MoonSky, Christian Neal, Tiera Lopper, Henry MacDowell, and Erick Alonso—forms a formidable collective. Each actor carves out a moment of humanity, whether in spotlight or ensemble, anchoring the abstract storytelling with authentic emotion. Though the cast is very much an ensemble, particular standouts are Lytle as our very gripping tortured hero and Beauvais for her searing, haunting vocals.

As a world premiere, The Moby Dick Blues is undeniably bold—but still somewhat adrift in places. Structurally, the production is loose and its narrative threads don’t always cohere; the script occasionally meanders in its ambition to stitch together the personal and the mythic. Yet Michael Gorman’s vision is emotionally potent, merging autobiographical echoes with Melville’s immortal themes of obsession, loss, and redemption. The result is an imperfect but deeply affecting theatrical journey—one that dares to navigate treacherous waters in pursuit of something larger than itself.

The Moby Dick Blues (through June 22, 2025)

A Forty Hour Club Production

La MaMa Experimental Theater Club

Ellen Stewart Theater, 66 East 4th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.ovationtix.com

Running time: two hours and 20 minutes including one intermission