Laurie Anderson - Songs & Stories from Moby Dick

Friday, 26th May, 2000 - 7.45pm - Barbican Theatre, London

After an introductory barrage of Brechtian alienation lasting several minutes to soften up the audience, Laurie Anderson's latest multi-media show settles into a familiar pattern of verbal and musical riffing on themes and scenes from Moby Dick itself, from Melville's life, and from Anderson's personal engagement with these.

The constituent elements and their juxtoposition will be readily recognised from Anderson's recent studio outings Strange Angels and Bright Red. The more conventional musical themes often sound like something out of which Peter Gabriel might construct a full-length rock song; here they are just fleeting fragments of Anderson's kaliedescopic vision.

Moby Dick has an iconic status in America that invests any treatment of it with a significance and topicality that easily escapes the outsider. Even from the outside, this production can be appreciated as a powerfully impressionistic work that builds superbly to convey an achingly intense identification with Melville's characters.

Tom Nelis is wonderfully charismatic as Captain Ahab and Anderson uses her violin expressively to represent the Great White Whale. The male vocalists convey Anderson's lyrics well and Skúli Sverrisson contributes solidly throughout on bass but Anderson's own presence as performer adds an extra dimension.

The choreography, back-projection, and lighting design provide continual support to Anderson's musical invention, making this much more truely a multi-media production than was The Nerve Bible.

So, all-in-all, Songs & Stories from Moby Dick is ninety minutes of pure Laurie Anderson at her most characteristic. For me that made for a splendidly fascinating and absorbing evening which had great visual impact, passages of impressive musical power, typical Anderson quirkiness, and above all tremendous theatricallity. I loved it!

(Review by: Steve Fagg)