Review: MOBY DICK'S GONE MISSING at Abbey Theatre Of Dublin

When Joe Bishara was auditioning potential cast members for MOBY DICK’S GONE MISSING with playwright Sean Cooney, they found the “perfect fit” for seven of the show’s eight roles.

The one missing however was that of Captain Ahab, one of the lynch pins for the show. At the end of the auditions, Cooney turned his gaze to Bishara and said, “Well, Mr. Director, it’s down to you.”

Bishara, who hadn’t graced the stage in a play for 13 years, reluctantly agreed. Bishara directs and is one of the high points in the Original Productions Theatre and the Abbey Theatre of Dublin’s production of MOBY DICK’S GONE MISSING, which runs Oct. 5-7 and 12-14 at the Abbey (5600 Post Road in Dublin).

After the curtain went down on the world premiere of his play, Cooney seemed pleased with his choice.

“Wasn’t he (Bishara) great?” the Irish playwright asked without expecting an answer.

MOBY DICK’S GONE MISSING reimagines an event from Cooney’s childhood when an army of film producers, directors and actors invaded his hometown of Youghal, Ireland to film the 1956 epic MOBY DICK. While many were starstruck to see Gregory Peck hobbling through their streets as Captain Ahab, local anglers would stumble into Cooney’s family pub and scheme about kidnapping (whale-napping?) the plastic whale, so they could get back to fishing.

Cooney claims the events of the play are “70 percent accurate.” The plot of the play about holding the model whale hostage, however, remains solidly in the other 30 percent.

Skipper Blarney (played brilliantly by Sean Patrick Taylor) and cohort Jack/Jonah (Allison Leonard) snatch the whale from the soundstage and drag it through the streets of Youghal to a pub owned by Blarney’s girlfriend Kitty Hanratty (Colleen Creghan). Blarney convinces Kitty the best place to hide the 70-foot monster is in plain sight, the rafters of her pub. The flaw in the plan is the pub is frequented by Constable Garda Gonkers (Scott Douglas Wilson), the local police officer, and actors Queequeg (Charles Easley) and Captain Ahab (Bishara) as well as local tramp Birdie (Rachel Scherrer) and Hollywood wannabe Oliver Scully (Ryan Heitkamp).

One of the strengths of this play is the work of dialogue coach Liz Wheeler, who got the Columbus residents to sound like Irish natives. In particular, Taylor and Creghan must have kissed the Blarney Stone because their accents and Irish mannerisms are convincing.

Performing underneath the eye of a semi-inflated whale, Creghan brings Kitty’s street smarts and subtle methods of manipulation to life. Taylor captures Blarney’s impulsiveness and Irish frustration at the foreigners who have taken over his town.

Bishara’s Ahab is a more than subtle nudge to Peck vocally. As a method actor, Ahab needs Scully and later enlists Kitty to recite lines that will keep him in character. The actor keeps drifting between the real world and the pretend one of Ahab.
Much of Cooney’s script relies on physical comedy. Wilson’s clumsy Gonkers loses his custodian helmet every time he sneezes upon entering the pub and Leonard’s Jack/Jonah struggles to keep the crime a secret and violently hiccups every time the kidnapped whale is mentioned.

The rest of the comedy is based on the word play inside Cooney’s script. Easley’s Queequeg passes himself off as a member of a mysterious tribe before his Bronx accent gives him away. Scherrer’s Birdie dresses like Marilyn Monroe and coyly uses double entendre in attempts to seduce Ahab and Queequeg. Heitkamp, on the other hand, tries to insert himself as one of the Hollywood insiders but clearly resides in the outskirts of their world.

As a director, Bishara keeps the reins on this odd little world of Youghal while as an actor, he contributes to its madness.

“It has been so long since I have been on this side of the stage,” Bishara said. “I might not have done it if it hadn’t been for the chance to work with this exceptional cast.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jerri Shafer

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