Playwright: Joe Forbrich. At: Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets: 1-773-975-8150; www.theaterwit.org; $30. Runs through: Oct. 11
The Whaleship Essex isn't a great play, but it's riveting theater that tells a harrowing tale.
Similar to other real-life adventures from the Age of SailMutiny on the Bounty, Two Years Before the Mast, Moby Dick ( inspired by the Essex disaster )it's Biblical in tone and scope, especially with the somewhat formal 19th-century syntax and vocabulary of the text. The tiny ship upon the vast sea is an apt metaphor for mankind amidst the cosmos, less than a blink of God's eye, while the sea captain holding life-and-death authority over his crew stands in for an Old Testament prophet if not for God outright.
The Essex sailed in 1819 from Nantucket Island, a prosperous whaling port before gaslight made whale oil obsolete. Small in size even then ( at 87 feet about the size of Navy Pier's tall ship, Windy ), the Essex nonetheless had a successful history that changed quickly. Two days out, a squall laid it "abeam" ( on its side ) causing heavy damage, but worse was yet to come. Having rounded Cape Horn to South Pacific whaling grounds, a huge sperm whale rammed the Essex twice and sank it. The surviving crewin three whaling boatswent through a horrific ordeal sailing thousands of miles to the South American coast. After several men died of starvation, the others resorted to cannibalism and murder-by-lot of a crewmate to provide food.
That alone would make a well-told sea adventure, but there also are character issues to inflame things, chiefly the open antagonism between amiable first-time Capt. George Pollard ( Brad Woodard ) and whip-wielding Owen Chase ( Joseph Wiens ), Pollard's headstrong First Mate. Both survived to have careers as ship captains before retiring into haunted old age on Nantucket. Their contrasting temperaments are clearly drawn by Woodward and Wiens as guided by veteran director Lou Contey.
Author Joe Forbrichabsent from Chicago and Shattered Globe for 10 successful yearstells the tale in an almost matter-of-fact fashion. He's absorbed the two extant accounts of the voyage written by Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson, seen in the play at 14 ( Angie Shriner ) and at 45 ( Ben Werling ) as the play's narrator. Forbrich excludes or alters many incidents, but such changes are necessary to construct a compact and dramatic piece.
And dramatic it is, gathering interest after a slow start. Under Contey, the physically dexterous cast of 15 works against brilliant black-and-white projections by Michael Stanfill. Ann Davis' rope-rigged set, Shelley Strasser Holland's lighting and Sarah Jo White's salt-tinged costumes fill out the spectacle along with Vivian Knouse's props and fight choreography by Christina Gorman. Still, the heavy, lengthy opening exposition leaves The Whaleship Essex becalmed for the first 20 minutes.