Rinde Eckert: And God Created Great Whales January 25, 2012

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 to Sunday, January 29, 2012 | Wed-Sat 8:30 pm | Sun 3:00 pm

Hailed as “total magic” by The New York Times, this Obie Award-winning work of groundbreaking music-theater is a morbidly funny and deeply moving operatic journey into the psyche of an eccentric composer as he desperately tries to complete his final opus: an opera based on Melville’s Moby-Dick. Alpert Award-winner Rinde Eckert’s tour de force performance draws the audience into the haunted world of Nathan, whose struggle against mental deterioration forces him to rely on a tape recorder worn around his neck, in place of a working memory, as his obsession with the opera becomes as total as Ahab’s quest for the white whale. Masterfully directed by David Schweizer and featuring the vocal magic of original cast member Nora Cole, these performances mark the return of Eckert’s seminal 2000 off-Broadway production, which prompted critics to cite such diverse references as Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett and Tom Waits.