Songs and Stories From Moby Dick

Songs and Stories from Moby Dick is Laurie Anderson’s take on a classic of American literature. Wielding her synth, her electric violin and processed vocals—along with video projections associatively based on Melville’s famously associative storytelling—Anderson approaches the audience as a storyteller, spinning yarns about America. As she put it, “It’s about people working — and that’s pretty American. Another is that you’re trapped on a ship with a captain who’s out of his mind. And this is not an unfamiliar concept to Americans: The guy in charge is crazy, completely crazy. And the third is that it’s about something that you look for, that you’re never going to find.”

This production of Songs and Stories From Moby Dick was originally presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in October of 1999.