Yngvild Aspeli directs this stage adaptation of Herman Melville’s great novel about ambition, obsession and the power of nature, featuring large-scale puppetry, live action, video projection and music.
Featuring seven actors, fifty puppets and a whale-sized whale, Plexus Polaire’s award-winning show is a expedition into the inner storms of the human heart and the unexplained mysteries of life.
Plexus Polaire is a French-Norwegian theatre company who, through the use of life-sized puppets, acting, music, light and video, develop visual worlds that bring our most buried feelings to life.
Ahead of opening at the Barbican, London as part of MimeLondon, we caught up with Aspeli to find out more about how the show has been brought to life onstage.
Q&A with Yngvild Aspeli
What is it like to be taking your production of Moby Dick to MimeLondon 2025?
It has been a dream for a long time to bring this show to London, and thanks to MimeLondon the dream is coming true. I am happy and humbled to perform at the Barbican and curious to let the audiences of London meet the whale.
What can you tell us about this version of Moby Dick?
My Moby Dick is a deep-dive into Melville’s novel and a descent into the mysteries of the human soul. It is a philosophical quest and an ode to the forces of nature. It is a summoning of all those lost at sea in an attempt to grasp the unfathomable mystery of life. It is the story of the unknown; everything that lingers under the surface. But most of all it is a celebration of the hidden sides of the world and of human nature.
What was it that drew you to adapting the story for the stage?
I believe that we are in need of stories; the great, complex stories that moves focus out of ourselves and gives us perspective. We need opportunities to gather in moments that are individual, yet collective. Something that can remind us that our only point of power is here and now. Experiences that makes us dream – not to escape reality, but to allow time to feel and reflect. Sometimes we need to confront monsters of the deep or our own darkness to remain humain and remember that we are in it together.
How much of a challenge was it to capture the scale of Melville’s novel – and the whale – on stage?
It was a massive challenge making this show, especially since it was made during the pandemic. Being an international project including a large number of people and a whale-sized whale the birth of the project was as dangerously painful and beautifully dramatic as the ocean itself.
How do you approach directing a vast production such as this?
An artistic creation is made with the mad mix of experience, knowledge of your craft and the intuitive listening to the material you have awoken. But most of all it is many hardworking days and a great deal of sleepless nights.
I do a great deal of writing, as well as drawing storyboards, to prepare the work, as well as modelling the faces of the characters represented as puppets. The different scenes are developed on the floor through numerous directed improvisation, until the scrabbled pieces of paper become a scenario and a script.
The premiere of a show is not the end of the work, but the actual beginning. A piece of theatre comes to life only when it meets the audience, and it is important for me to take this into consideration. The first shows are therefore always fragile, because i am still finishing the writing of the show. But it also means that the show finds its force from the reality of the stage and the real encounter with the audience.
Is there anything you hope audiences take away from the show?
I hope the audience will let themselves embark on a journey, that they will be surprised and shaken. That they feel the fragility of being human and the force of our nature.
Maybe they will leave feeling a bit seasick, as the show has shipped them down into the unknown, but I hope they come back to shore with a sense of relief and joy over being alive and human.
Plexus Polaire’s Moby Dick is at The Pit, Barbican from 22 to 25 January 2025
MimeLondon runs in venues across London from 14 January to 2 February 2025
