Captain Ahab hunts the legendary Moby Dick across the oceans. It was this white whale who tore off Ahab’s leg during their skirmish. And Ahab has been plotting his revenge ever since. He promises his crew a gold doubloon for sighting the animal, and now they know that this journey is about much more than whaling. Herman Melville’s novel is more than just the grand adventure story as which it entered into the canon of world literature after its publication in 1851. Melville’s narrative style in Moby Dick was also ahead of its time. In addition to the struggle with and the search for the white whale, the novel also deals with the existential questions of being human. It is about the epic fight between good and evil, nature’s superior power, capitalism and exploitation. Ahab is confronted with a profoundly human dilemma: He not only wants to vanquish and own Moby Dick – he wants to destroy him. Only one of them can continue to traverse the seas. But Ahab’s obsession ends in self-destruction.
In her work, director Jessica Weisskirchen often analyses the construct of rulership. In her first production at Schauspiel Hannover, she takes a look at a group of men who defer to the fanaticism of one individual and are dragged into the abyss as a consequence.