John Zibell is anything but your typical director. “Traditionally, theatre tells you what to think,” the Master of Fine Arts candidate said. Not so with The Moby-Dick Variations, set to open Thursday, May 5. “The audience has to bring thoughts of their own.”

The Department of Theatre and Dance production also does without the traditional stage and spectator seating. In fact, audience members will be invited to wander among the performers.

Zibell’s objective is twofold: to enable the audience to experience the multiplicity of perspectives that Herman Melville delivers in his novel Moby-Dick, and to allow the audience to experience additional perspectives — their own and the performers’ — as seen through contemporary lenses.

“Audience members may come to the theatre expecting to be told the story of Ishmael, Ahab, Queequeg and others,” said Claire Maria Chambers, a cast member and performance studies doctoral candidate. “Instead, they will be given impressions of and experiences of loss and love, strife and friendship, the vastness of the ocean and the idea of death.

“John’s vision is post-dramatic. It is concerned with atmosphere and experience instead of meaning.”

Zibell’s inspiration came from the multicultural Moby-Dick, and the director follows Melville’s narrative and plot, albeit in nonlinear fashion. Unlike the novel, The Moby-Dick Variations is set in the present and investigates the disappearance of the human animal from the natural landscape.

Zibell conceived of The Moby-Dick Variations, but he did not devise it on his own. That credit goes to the entire company, in what the director described as an exercise in collective storytelling.

One of their methods is the “breath score,” developed by experimental composer and performance studies doctoral candidate Dylan Bolles.

That breath, Zibell said, is “rhythmic but not regular, like ocean waves.” He likened this approach to jazz: “Every performance will be different, and we’re training to play a song, (to) improvise like Coltrane.

“Conceptually what we’re doing is xenopoetics — composing out of disparate materials,” Zibell said.

Those materials include Melville’s text, the performers and their present-day perspectives, digital video collage, and costume and scenic designs.

The scenery “is much like a street wall, with layers of images or fliers containing layers of meaning,” said the designer, MFA candidate Gian Scarabino. “All of these layers contribute to Melville’s ‘multitudinous, god-omnipresent.’ In some cases, the layers themselves are even broken up by allowing performers to pass through to another perspective.”

The “text score” contributes to the many strata of perspective. Following this blueprint, the actors perform all the different characters at varying times.

“Everybody is Ishmael at some point,” Zibell said. Even the audience members can be Ishmael, as they have the opportunity to view and interact with the performance from many viewpoints.

Although the piece experiments with the multiplicity of character and perspective, several anchors remain: actors Will Klundt and Alejandro Torres serve as fixed versions of Ishmael and Queequeg, while Emelie Coleman serves as another anchor in a ritualized dance sequence, on video.

Despite the experimental approach, the essence of Melville’s work remains. “The beauty of the novel is in its prose and poetry,” Zibell said. “The narrative is almost not there. Like life, it feels like there’s a story, but what you’re inside of is the experience, the poetry, not the objective meaning.”

Reporting by Janice Bisgaard, publicity manager for the Department of Theatre and Dance.

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: The Moby-Dick Variations, conceived of and directed by John Zibell, Master of Fine Arts candidate in directing, and devised by the company

WHEN

• Thursday-Saturday, May 5-7 and 12-14 — 8 p.m.
• Sunday, May 8 and 15 — 2 p.m.

WHERE: Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

TICKETS: $17 general admission; $12 students, children and seniors. Advance tickets are available online (click on “Purchase Tickets Now!”), or in person or by telephone at the Mondavi Center box office, (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787.

RATING: PG-13 (a motion picture rating that states: “Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13")

Read the complete news release.

Julius Caesar

Studio 301 Productions, the only student-run theatre company at UC Davis, presents this Shakespeare play, directed by Michael Lutheran.

Typical of Studio 301, Julius Caesar will be presented in an uncoventional space: the courttyard between the School of Education and Sproul Hall. (You might remember Studio 301's Macbeth, presented in the sunken interior courtyard of the Social Sciences and Humanities Building.)

"The director's vision and his use of this outdoor space will make Julius Caesar seen as never seen before," Studio 301's Alison Stevenson said. "Professional fight choreography is sure to bring the action, while the drama and suspense laden in the script itself, along with these hard-working actors, is sure to have audiences captivated."

WHEN:

• Wednesday-Saturday, May 11-14 — 8 p.m.
• Sunday, May 15 — 7 p.m.
• Thursday-Saturday, May 19-21 — 8 p.m.
• Sunday, May 22 — 7 p.m.

WHERE: School of Education courtyard, between the School of Education and Sproul Hall (click here for map showing Sproul Hall)

TICKETS: $10 general admission, $6 students. Tickets are available at the Freeborn Hall box office, telephone (530) 752-1915.

Shakespeare (abridged)

The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble describes The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) as "an irreverent, fast-paced romp through the Bard’s 37 plays." Directed by Gia Battista.

"This wild lampoon of the Bard's comedies, histories and tragedies includes a lightning-speed version of Hamlet both forward AND backward," according to a news release. "We guarantee you will be breathless with laughter!"

WHEN

• Thursday-Sunday, May 12-15 and 19-22 — 8 p.m.
• Sunday, May 12 and 19 — 2 p.m.

WHERE: Arboretum gazebo

TICKETS: $12 adults, $8 students, $5 children 12 and under. Reservations: davis.shakespeare@gmail.com.

MORE INFORMATION: Online or by e-mail, davis.shakespeare@gmail.com.