Based on the Raymond Carver short story What Do You Do In San Francisco? this is a fragmentary tale of a postman, some beatniks and a whale. While there are some pleasant moments, particularly the song at the end, it is mostly an odd and somewhat incomplete production.
Doug Gilbert thinks hes a whale. His girlfriend, Rebecca Fuller, fills us in on his life so far while they sip Stella Artois on a beach in Europe. Doug broke his foot backpacking and now theyre not sure theyll get to go to Sarajevo as planned. Plus, Doug refuses to take off his papier-mâché whale suit and Becca wont put down the harpoon until he does.
In quite a simple but effective comment on the beginnings of stories foreshadowing their endings, Becca and Doug go on to talk about their future, about their children and careers and marital problems. Unfortunately, the actress playing Becca is not so slyly reading from a script inside a magazine at this point and one begins to worry that the whole play will be story time from a deck chair.
However, we shift to America and meet an energetically enacted postman who, since his wife left him, has become obsessed with his job. He narrates his encounter with a Beatnik couple and makes various observations about telling oneself stories. This is the part based on the Raymond Carver tale and it stands out from the rest of the play as pleasantly lyrical absurdity rather than total bizarreness.
There are numerous attempts to quote Moby Dick and position this performance as literary commentary, but the result is stilted. The nonsensical narratives are not slick enough to achieve charm and the play itself just leaves one wondering, from the very beginning, where on earth this is going.
