View source for Moby Dick—Rehearsed

{{Short description|American play by Orson Welles}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox play
| name       = Moby Dick—Rehearsed
| image      = 
| image_size = 
| image_alt  = 
| caption    = 
| writer     = [[Orson Welles]]
| chorus     = 
| characters = 
| mute       = 
| setting    = 
| premiere   = June 16, 1955
| place      = [[Duke of York's Theatre]], [[London]]
| orig_lang  = [[English language|English]]
| series     = 
| subject    = 
| genre      = [[Drama]]
| web        = 
}}

'''''Moby Dick''''' (sometimes referred to as '''''Moby Dick—Rehearsed''''') is a two-act [[Play (theatre)|drama]] written by [[Orson Welles]]. The play was staged June 16–July 9, 1955, at the [[Duke of York's Theatre]] in London, in a production directed by Welles. The original cast included Welles, [[Christopher Lee]], [[Kenneth Williams]], [[Joan Plowright]], [[Patrick McGoohan]], [[Gordon Jackson (actor)|Gordon Jackson]], [[Peter Sallis]], and [[Wensley Pithey]].<ref name=Bogdanovich418>[[Orson Welles|Welles, Orson]] and [[Peter Bogdanovich]], ''[[This is Orson Welles]]''. New York: [[HarperCollins]] Publishers, 1992, {{ISBN|0-06-016616-9}} Welles career chronology by [[Jonathan Rosenbaum]], p. 418.</ref> The play was published by [[Samuel French, Inc.|Samuel French]] in 1965.<ref>[[Orson Welles|Welles, Orson]], ''Moby Dick—Rehearsed'': A Drama in Two Acts. New York: [[Samuel French, Inc.]], 1965, {{ISBN|0-573-61242-0}}. "Being an adaptation—for the most part in blank verse—of the [[Moby-Dick|novel]] by [[Herman Melville]]."</ref>

Welles used minimal stage design. The stage was bare, the actors appeared in contemporary street clothes, and the props were minimal. For example, brooms were used for oars, and a stick was used for a telescope. The actors provided the action, and the audience's imagination provided the ocean, costumes, and the whale.

Welles filmed approximately 75 minutes of the production, with the original cast, at the [[Hackney Empire]] and [[Scala Theatre]]s in London. He hoped to sell the film to ''[[Omnibus (U.S. TV series)|Omnibus]]'', the United States television series which had presented his live performance of ''[[King Lear (1953 TV drama)|King Lear]]'' in 1953; but Welles stopped shooting when he was disappointed in the results. The film is lost.<ref name=Bogdanovich418 />

==Plot==
The setting is a mid-19th-century American [[repertory]] theater. The play begins subtly as the audience arrives with the cast milling around an empty stage. The cast members generally fool around and complain about their boss and their forthcoming production of ''[[King Lear]]''.  Then, making a big dramatic entrance and smoking a cigar, the actor manager of the time comes on stage and tells them they are going to rehearse a version of [[Herman Melville]]'s 1851 novel ''[[Moby Dick]]'' that the Young Actor has been adapting for the stage.

The cast grudgingly performs the play, improvising scenery from items lying around, and gradually get more into character as the play develops.

==Productions==

===London===
Directed by Orson Welles, the original production of ''Moby Dick—Rehearsed'' ran June 16–July 9, 1955, at the [[Duke of York's Theatre]], London. Programmes for the London run, including the opening night performance, give the title as simply ''Moby Dick''.<ref>Theatre Programme: ''Moby Dick''. Duke of York's Theatre, London. 16 June 1956 (printing date 13 June).</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
! Actor || Role
|-
| [[Gordon Jackson (actor)|Gordon Jackson]]      || A Young Actor/Ishmael 
|-
| [[Christopher Lee]] / [[Peter Sallis]]<ref>Peter Sallis: Fading Into the Limelight, Orion 2006</ref> || A Stage Manager/Flask
|-
| [[Patrick McGoohan]]      || A Serious Actor/Starbuck 
|-
| [[Wensley Pithey]]  || A Middle-Aged Actor/Stubb 
|-
| [[Joan Plowright]]  || A Young Actress/Pip 
|-
| [[Orson Welles]]      || An Actor Manager/Father Mapple/Ahab 
|-
| [[Kenneth Williams]]  || A Very Serious Actor/Elijah and others 
|-
| Joseph Chelton  || A Manager/Tashtego 
|-
| [[John Gray (actor)|John Gray]]  || An Assistant Stage Manager/Bo'sun 
|-
| Jefferson Clifford      || An Experienced Actor/Peleg 
|}

===New York===
Directed by Douglas Campbell, ''Moby Dick'' was presented on Broadway November 28–December 8, 1962, at the [[Ethel Barrymore Theatre]]. Orson Welles was not involved in the production, which ran 13 performances.

{| class="wikitable"
! Actor || Role
|-
| [[Bruno Gerussi]]      || A Young Actor/Ishmael 
|-
| Max Helpmann      || A Cynical Actor/Flask
|-
| Roy Poole      || A Serious Actor/Starbuck 
|-
| Hugh Webster  || Actor with Newspaper/Stubb 
|-
| [[Frances Hyland]]  || A Young Actress/Pip 
|-
| [[Rod Steiger]]      || An Actor Manager/Father Mapple/Ahab 
|-
| Bill Fletcher  || Member of the Company/Elijah 
|-
| [[Louis Zorich]]  || Middle-aged Actor/Tashtego 
|-
| William Needles  || Stage Manager/Peleg/Voice of The Rachel 
|-
| David Thomas      || An Old Pro/The Carpenter
|-
| John Horton  || Member of the Company/The Mastheader/Voice of The Bachelor 
|-
| Lee Morrison      || Member of the Company/Queequeg
|-
| Melvin Scott  || Member of the Company/Daggoo
|}

The play has since been performed numerous times on both sides of the Atlantic.

== Film ==
Orson Welles filmed approximately 75 minutes of the original 1955 production, with the original cast, at the [[Hackney Empire]] and [[Scala Theatre]]s in London. He hoped to sell the film to ''[[Omnibus (U.S. TV series)|Omnibus]]'', the United States television series which had presented his live performance of ''[[King Lear (1953 TV drama)|King Lear]]'' in 1953; but Welles stopped shooting when he was disappointed in the results.<ref name=Bogdanovich418 /> The film is lost, with the only copy believed to have been destroyed when a fire broke out at Welles's Madrid home in 1970, while he rented it to the actor [[Robert Shaw (British actor)|Robert Shaw]], who was drunkenly smoking in bed.{{Citation needed|date=January 2013}}

Because the film is lost, many people have speculated it was never created. However, evidence supporting the film having been made can be found in the book, ''The Films of Christopher Lee'', by Pohle Jr. and Hart{{snd}}[[Patrick McGoohan]] said in a 1986 interview that the excerpt of the film he saw while Welles was reviewing the rushes one day was fantastic.<ref>Roger Langley, [http://www.tomahawkpress.com/tomahawk.html ''Patrick McGoohan: Danger Man or Prisoner?''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090312055743/http://www.tomahawkpress.com/tomahawk.html |date=2009-03-12 }}, Tomahawk Press, 2007.</ref>

In ''The Fabulous Orson Welles'', by Peter Noble, cameraman Hilton Craig reveals: "it was by no means merely a photographed stage-play. On the contrary, it was shot largely in close-ups and looked very impressive on near-completion."

[[Kenneth Williams]]' autobiography ''Just Williams'' records Williams' apprehension at the project, as it was filmed by the play's cast in just one weekend at the then-abandoned [[Hackney Empire]] theatre. He describes how Welles' dim, atmospheric stage lighting made some of the footage so dark as to be unwatchable. At least 40 minutes of the play was filmed, but is now presumed lost.

Of the film project, Welles's official biographer Barbara Leaming wrote in 1985:

{{blockquote|Persistent rumours over the years have hinted that there is a finished film of Welles's ''Moby Dick—Rehearsed'' stashed away somewhere, but Orson had barely started the film when he gave it up. "We shot for three days", he recalls, "and it was obvious it wasn't going to be any good, so we stopped. There was no film made at all. We only did one and a half scenes. I said, let's not go on and waste our money, because it's not going to be any good."<ref name=Leaming402>Barbara Leaming, ''Orson Welles: A Biography'' (New York: Viking, 1985) p. 402.</ref>}}

In support of this, Leaming quotes Welles's friend at the time, the playwright [[Wolf Mankowitz]], who said: "Orson's attitude is a very pragmatic one. He thinks until you get on the set with the actors and lights and the rest of it, you don't know whether it's going to work or not. And he simply reserves the right as an artist to sort of drop it if it doesn't work."<ref name=Leaming402 />

It is believed that the Munich Film Museum, which holds many of Welles's unfinished films, is in possession of the reels of the unfinished film; but by the time they had been donated in the 1990s, the reels had deteriorated beyond recovery; nonetheless, the museum is preserving these reels in case future technologies may be able to recover them.<ref>Wellesnet interview with [[Jonathan Rosenbaum]], January 2003, posted at http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2003/01/wellesnet-interview/</ref>
 
The ''Moby Dick—Rehearsed'' film is not to be confused with a later unfinished film project in 1971, wherein [[Moby Dick (1971 film)|Welles filmed 22 minutes of various scenes from the play]], playing all the parts himself. The footage of that film was acquired by the [[Munich Film Museum]] in 1995 and restored in 1999.

==Other film versions==
The play was adapted for [[Moby Dick - Rehearsed (TV play)|Australian television in 1965]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IBDB show|6175|Moby Dick}}
* {{IMDb title|title=Moby Dick Rehearsed|qid=Q105685621}}
* [http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=699 wellesnet: The orson welles web resource]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y81GdGApkh8 Kenneth Williams recalls ''Moby Dick Rehearsed'' and Orson Welles (1978)]

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{{Moby-Dick}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moby Dick Rehearsed}}
[[Category:1955 films]]
[[Category:1950s lost films]]
[[Category:Lost American drama films]]
[[Category:Plays by Orson Welles]]
[[Category:Plays based on novels]]
[[Category:American films based on plays]]
[[Category:Works based on Moby-Dick]]