By Olivia Niland
Student Writer
The USC Annenberg Auditorium rang out with voices on the evening of Oct. 11 as about a dozen high school and USC student actors performed “Moby-Dick: Then and Now,” a USC Visions and Voices Event.
The play, which was written and directed by playwright and actor Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, was originally produced at the Mixed Magic Theatre in Rhode Island, where it first caught the attention of USC Annenberg Professor of Communication Henry Jenkins.
“I very much wanted to bring this performance to LA,” said Jenkins, who was able to do so in part through the Annenberg Innovation Lab. “And this has been a collaboration that has brought together many different parts of USC,” he said, acknowledging the participation of the School of Dramatic Arts, the School of Cinematic Arts and the Rossier School of Education.
Jenkins, who is also USC Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education, joined USC Annenberg in 2009 after directing MIT's Comparative Media Studies graduate program for 16years. Co-authored with MIT professor and Melville specialist Wyn Kelley, Jenkins’ most recent book, Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom, features Pitts-Wiley's efforts to make literature, specifically Moby-Dick, more accessible to incarcerated youth.
Both Jenkins and Pitts-Wiley view reading literature as participatory, and have recognized the education potential of “remixing” to make classic literature more relatable and relevant to modern youth. But Pitts-Wiley emphasized that he takes great effort to retell classic stories in such a way that they become modernized, but are still true to their source, and he tries to teach students to do the same.
“Melville acknowledged where things came from, and I think it's so important for young people to understand that just because you have a computer and can go grab something [from the internet] doesn't mean that you're not responsible for knowing where it came from,” said Pitts-Wiley. “It's not just yours because you can use it, and also, if you take the time to figure out where it comes from, it gains greater value.”
Jenkins also emphasized the difference between “remixing” classic literature and plagiarizing the works of other authors, a distinction which can something create confusion for teachers when first introduced to the concept.
“A remix knows where it comes from,” said Jenkins, noting that Moby-Dick itself is an allusion to the Bible, among other sources. “It's grounded in history; it's quoting things for a reason. Plagiarism is simply copying, it tries to mask where it comes from. In my mind, that's a fundamental, ethical difference between the two. Modern culture is built on remixing.”
In “Moby-Dick: Then and Now,” the traditional telling of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick plays out on one half of the stage, while on the other half, Pitts-Wiley's re-imagining of the story as a tale of loss and revenge deeply entrenched within 21st century urban gang culture comes to life.
In the updated version, Captain Ahab has become Alba, a teenage girl whose brother was killed after becoming caught up in the drug trade. Rather than the whale of the original story, Alba's nemesis and object of revenge is WhiteThing, an mysterious entity which appears in a different form to each who view it, and comes to represent the international drug cartel, which has many “agents” that impact people’s lives. The “now” cast incorporates modern slang, popular culture references and allusions to topics such as consumerism, drug use and street violence, which Pitts-Wiley acknowledged as relevant to many youth today, and is inspired by the original group of incarcerated students he worked with in Rhode Island.
“These young people not only read [Moby-Dick], but they read it closely,” said Pitts-Wiley. “Even though I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do with the novel, they really released my imagination.”
In addition to the contrast between the costumes of the two sets of actors—sea-faring garb for the “then” group, jeans and tennis shoes for the “now”—Pitts-Wiley also chose to make two groups demographically distinctive. Drawing on the conception of Melville as a “dead white male writer,” Pitts-Wiley casts many of the “then” actors, in most performances, as older and white, with the majority of actors drawn from USC's own theatre program.
The “now” cast, on the other hand, was deliberately chosen to be mixed race and younger, and most of the students were sourced from Gertz-Ressler High School and the Los Angeles High School of the Arts. Both casts featured many female members, and several of the men's roles were played by women, a choice which, according to Pitts-Wiley, is key to the retelling of the tale and addressing the criticism that Melville's classic novel only features male characters.
“Making Alba a female character was important because I wanted to be able to illustrate that the passion and the desire to exact revenge on something that has hurt you is not just limited to men,” said Pitts-Wiley. “And also I didn't want it to be a comparison of two characters. By making Alba female, it became just two captains...and in some ways I think it shows the capacity of female leadership to be hardcore too.”
Another noteworthy aspect of the performance itself is that it was the result of only five days of rehearsing by the actors, who were brought together with help from USC Annenberg graduate student Alexandrina Agloro.
“To think that [Pitts-Wiley] put this together in five days and could draw such great stuff out of a remarkable group of students really blows my mind,” said Jenkins. “And obviously the ideas of the play are very relevant to South Central Los Angeles, and it's so great that the show features students from local high schools and that their parents are here to see them tonight. It really bridges a divide.”
The 90-minute performance was followed by a short question and answer session by both Jenkins and Pitts-Wiley, during which Pitts-Wiley discussed why he feels there is such a need for retelling classic literature.
“Teachers teach the literature that was important to them, and to their teachers,” said Pitts-Wiley. “But I'm not sure they're asking enough what's important to young people.”
This idea will carry over into Pitts-Wiley's next project, a remixing of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In addition to being a playwright, songwriter and author, Pitts-Wiley is currently in residency at USC this fall, and spoke about Moby-Dick: Then and Now alongside Jenkins and co-author Wyn Kelley at a Los Angeles Public Library event last month.
“Moby-Dick: Then and Now” was Jenkins’ second Visions and Voices event, and he expressed an interest in bringing more remixing to USC. And given the reaction from audience, cast and crew members following the performance, future events will likely be well received.
“I'd never read Moby-Dick,” said Amber Espinosa-Jones, a junior theatre major who provided technical assistance for the production. “There's a reason why I usually don't remember most of the books I read. But this retelling is kind of genius, if you think about it. I never would have thought to present the book this way.”
Deanna Morgan, a sophomore theatre major and member of the “then” cast, agreed: “The way [Pitts-Wiley] presents the story is new,” said Morgan. “I feel like people my age have so much shorter attention spans, and we learn a lot visually and through media, so there's a reason that something like this is memorable.”
