Call me Herman Melville

MARION — With the sounds of waves crashing against the shore, the ghost of Herman Melville, the author of “Moby-Dick,” recounted his life from his experiences out on sea as a young man to his death at 72 years old.

Written and directed by Carl Rossi, performer Stephen Collins acted in the one-man play against a backdrop of black with only a single bench for a prop at the Marion Art Center on Friday, Jan. 24.

Herman Melvill was born into a merchant family in New York City, his last name changing to Melville after his mother thought adding an “e” would make their last name sound more sophisticated, Collins began.

He shared stories from Melville’s time aboard the whalingship, the “Acushnet,” which led him to the Marquesas Islands where he met the Typee cannibals.

Melville’s first book, “Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life,” was his fictional account of his time on the Marquesas Islands and launched his career as an author.

Collins said that Melville also felt competition with his brother, Gansevoort, for his mother’s attention, explaining that Melville felt he had more in common with his mother than Gansevoort did, which made him think he would have been the more liked sibling.

The play, titled “Sailing Towards My Father,” also delved into Melville’s homelife, including the birth and death of his son Malcolm, who wanted to go out to sea like his father but was forbidden from doing so. Malcolm joined the army instead, fighting in the American Civil War for the Union.

Malcolm died when he was 18 years old when he was cleaning his pistol and a shot fired, Collins said.

There was some uncertainty whether Malcolm committed suicide or if his death was accidental, but during the play, Collins portrayed Melville as distraught with grief, re-iterating over and over that his son didn’t kill himself.

Collins also portrayed the relationship between Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who influenced Melville’s writing and in particular “Moby-Dick.”

The play ends with Melville’s death in 1891 when he was 72 years old.

For the past eight years, Collins has acted as Melville, re-telling his story with the help of Rossi, who agreed to write the script after Collins expressed interest in a play about Melville.

While Collins had read “Billy Budd” and some of Melville’s short stories, he hadn’t read “Moby-Dick” until Rossi was committed to writing the play’s script, he said.

“I made a study of Moby-Dick and I read it several times, and I thought to myself, ‘How could I not have made the effort to get through this book at a much younger age than this?’” he said.