Orson Welles Rehearses Moby Dick

Orson Welles was a world conqueror in 1941 when he came out with Citizen Kane, a career high point he never reached again, though sporadic successes over the years kept reminding people what he was capable of. Kent Stephens’s new play centers on one of those later productions, Welles’s 1955 London stage production of Herman Melville’s novel. It’s a portrait of the artist as an older man, well played by Garry Geiken as an arrogant and mercurial genius slowly being eaten away by fears that “former genius” is more accurate. He’s questing after the ghosts of his former glory, and Stephens and director Bain Boehlke make the most of the parallel between Welles and whale-crazed Captain Ahab. It’s a witty, highly allusive play that weaves in threads of meaning through constant references to the original novel, the most well-remembered scenes from Welles’s filmography, and Shakespeare’s Tempest. To Stephens, Welles isn’t just Ahab, he’s Prospero, the wizard in exile who dreams of reconquering the kingdom. Jungle, 2951 Lyndale Ave. S., (612) 822-7063, http://www.jungletheater.com