Persephone Productions
  • Home
  • The Company
    • Mission
    • Meet The Director
    • History
    • Awards
    • Notable Alumni
    • In The Press
    • Feedback
  • Past Productions
    • Blue Stockings >
      • Meet the Artists
      • Production Gallery
      • In the Press
      • Audience Feedback
    • Counting Aloud
    • Abigail/1702
    • Jerome of Sandy Cove
    • Compleat Female Stage Beauty
    • Moby Dick >
      • MD - Press Release /Communique de presse
      • Moby Dick - Production Notes
    • 2015 GALA
    • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde >
      • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Press
    • The Nisei & The Narnauks >
      • The Nisei & The Narnauks Press
    • Spring Awakening: The Musical >
      • Spring Awakening: The Musical 2014
    • Strawberries in January
    • The Walnut Tree >
      • Press Release - The Walnut Tree
    • Spring Awakening: The Musical
    • Lost: A Memoir >
      • Lost: A Memoir Press >
        • The Westmount Independent Review for Lost: A Memoir
        • The Gazette Preview for Lost: A Memoir
    • Oroonoko >
      • Oroonoko Press >
        • The Gazette Review for Oroonoko
        • The Charlebois Post Review for Oroonoko
        • The Montrealer Interview with Paul Van Dyck for Oroonoko
    • Hamlet >
      • Hamlet Press >
        • First Person Charlebois Post by Christopher for Hamlet
        • CBC Interview with Gabrielle Soskin
        • The McGill Tribune Review for Hamlet
        • The Métropolitain Review for Hamlet
        • The Senior Times Review for Hamlet
    • To Be >
      • To Be Press >
        • Mirror Review for To Be
        • Charlebois Post First Person for To Be
    • Far from the Madding Crowd >
      • Far from the Madding Crowd Press >
        • Gazette Review for FFTMC
        • Mirror Review for FFTMC
        • Gazette Preview on Christopher Moore for FFTMC
        • Charlebois Post for FFTMC
    • Mary's Wedding >
      • Mary's Wedding Press >
        • Charlebois Post Interview with Gabrielle Soskin for Mary's Wedding
        • Canadian Jewish News Preview for Mary's Wedding
        • The Mirror Preview for Mary's Wedding
        • Charlebois Post Preview for Mary's Wedding
    • Henry V >
      • Henry V Press >
        • The Suburban Preview for Henry V
        • The Gazette Review for Henry V
        • Rover Arts Report for Henry V
        • Midnight Poutine Review for Henry V
        • Coolopolis Review for Henry V
        • Rover Arts Review for Henry V
    • Ten year Anniversary Gala
    • Be My Baby >
      • Be My Baby Press >
        • Gazette Preview for Be My Baby
        • Gazette Review for Be My Baby
        • The West End Times Preview for Be My Baby
        • The Suburban Review for Be My Baby
    • Cherry Docs >
      • Cherry Docs Press >
        • The Gazette (Cherry Docs)
        • The Suburban (Cherry Docs)
        • Rover Arts (Cherry Docs)
        • Dee Arr (Cherry Docs)
        • The Canadian Jewish News (Cherry Docs)
        • HOUR (Cherry Docs)
        • The Mirror (Cherry Docs)
        • Stanstead Journal (Cherry Docs)
    • Othello >
      • Othello Press >
        • The Gazette (Othello)
        • The Concordian (Othello)
        • The Link (Othello)
        • MicGill Tribune (Othello)
        • The Westmount Independent (Othello)
        • The NDG Monitor (Othello)
    • The Love of Shakespeare's Women (2)
    • Unity 1918 >
      • Unity 1918 Press >
        • The Gazette (Unity 1918)
        • The Mirror (Unity 1918)
        • Invisible Cities Network (Unity 1918)
        • McGill Tribune (Unity 1918)
        • HOUR (Unity 1918)
    • The Love of Shakespeare's Women (1) >
      • The Love of Shakespeare's Women Press >
        • The Westmount Independent (The Loves of Shakespeare's Women)
        • The Gazette (The Loves of Shakespeare's Women)
    • To the Green Fields Beyond >
      • To The Green Fields Beyond Press >
        • The Gazette (To The Green Fields Beyond)
        • The Mirror (To The Green Fields Beyond)
    • Prodigy >
      • Prodigy Press >
        • The Gazette (Prodigy)
        • La Press (Prodigy)
        • Le Délit (Prodigy)
        • Invisible Cities Network (Prodigy)
        • McGill Tribune (Prodigy)
        • The Surban (Prodigy)
        • The Mirror (Prodigy)
        • McGill Daily (Prodigy)
    • Spring Awakening >
      • Spring Awakening Press >
        • The Gazette (Spring Awakening)
        • Prince Chameleon Press (Spring Awakening)
        • Délit (Spring Awakening)
        • Mon Theatre (Spring Awakening)
    • A Room of One's Own >
      • A Room of One's Own Press >
        • CBC Radio One (A Room of One's Own)
        • The Gazette (A Room of One's Own)
        • The Westmount Examiner (A Room of One's Own)
        • The Canadian Jewish News (A Room of One's Own)
    • SubUrbia >
      • SubUrbia Press >
        • CBC Radio One(SubUrbia)
        • The Gazette (SubUrbia)
        • Montreal Mirror (SubUrbia)
        • HOUR (SubUrbia)
        • The Suburban (SubUrbia)
        • Westmount Times (SubUrbia)
        • The Canadian Jewish News (SubUrbia)
    • Jane Eyre >
      • Jane Eyre Press >
        • The Canadian Jewish News (Jane Eyre)
        • Orcasound (Jane Eyre)
    • West
    • Kindertransport >
      • Kindertransport Press >
        • The Gazette (Kindertransport)
        • Montreal Mirror (Kindertransport)
        • The Suburban (Kindertransport)
        • The Chronicle (Kindertransport)
    • Playhouse Creatures >
      • In The Press - Playhouse Creatures
    • Anna Karenina >
      • In The Press - Anna Karenina
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Support
  • Contact
  • FR

PRODUCTION NOTES
 by Phillip Dumouchel


“Nothing on earth is his equal – a creature without fear.
​He looks down on all that are haughty;
He is king over all that are proud.” – Job 41:31-34

“He piled upon the whale’s white hump all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.”  –Herman Melville, Moby Dick


The Book

  When Moby Dick was first printed in 1851, it was a critical and commercial failure. It now is considered to be one of the foremost masterpieces of american literature and is currently in its 1,444th edition.

What starts out as the first-hand account of the shipping-out of an inexperienced seaman named Ishmael quickly escalates into a struggle of biblical proportions between the monomaniac Captain Ahab and the white whale that crippled him: Moby Dick. Ishmael is relegated from protagonist to witness and we, like the rest of the crew, are along for the ride.

The Play
In 2000, Jim Burke's adaptation of Moby Dick toured the UK aboard Walk-the-Plank's theatre ship, the Fitzcarraldo, in a co-production with Liverpool company Kaboodle. It won Best New Play and Best Fringe Production in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. Epic about a sea captain’s suicidal revenge against a marine mammal

The Author
Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) was born into an impoverished branch of a New York establishment family. Faced with the prospect of a life of penury as a schoolteacher, at twenty years of age, Melville opted instead for a career at sea,joining the crew of a New Bedford whaling ship on his second voyage.

Whaling ships of this period stayed at sea for years at a time, often circumnavigating the earth in the process. This proved to be a bit much for the young man who jumped ship in the South Pacific. He returned to New York and published two books based on his nautical experiences before submitting to the task of writing Moby Dick.

On Whaling
Long-haul open-boat whaling of the kind practiced in Moby Dick was first developed in New England in the years immediately following the American Revolution. By the 1820s, the New England whaling fishery had grown to employ over ten thousand seamen.
The expansion of american whaling in the early nineteenth century coincided with a shift toward a near exclusive focus on hunting sperm whales in response to rising demand for an oily white fluid in the sperm whale’s nose called spermaceti.
Those who could afford it burned spermaceti as lamp oil and mixed it into expensive cosmetics. However, its primary use was as a mechanical lubricant. Before the invention of synthetic machine oils, the moving metal parts of everything from pocket watches to steam engines was greased with sperm whale oil.
Though scientists are still unsure about its exact function, recent research suggests that the vibration-sensitive spermaceti oil is used by the whale to “listen” to the surrounding ocean over great distances.   

Fact Behind Fiction
The events of Moby Dick are at least partly derived from the true story of the whaling ship Essex. In 1820, after killing two female whales traveling in a pod with their young, the Essex was attacked by an exceptionally large male sperm whale. The enraged bull rammed the Essex at high speed, splitting the ship, and sinking it. The remaining crew was left stranded in rowboats in the middle of the Pacific without food or fresh water. Those who survived did so by resorting to a grim expediency.

Moby Dick himself is almost certainly based upon an albino sperm whale named Mocha Dick who was first sighted by whalers around 1810. Mocha Dick was a notoriously dangerous whale that foiled over 100 attempts upon its life before being finally caught and killed in 1838.

Persephone Productions Inc
93, Somerville Ave.,
Westmount, Que, H3Z 1J4

CONTACT
ABOUT