(NORTH ADAMS and PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – The most famous novel ever written in the Berkshires – and perhaps anywhere in America and the world – comes to life this week courtesy of the Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland, when they bring their innovative adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick to the MCLA Church Street Center in North Adams on Thursday, October 4, 2012, at 8pm, as part of MCLA Presents! series, and then to Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield on Friday, October 5, 2012, at 8 pm, as part of Pittsfield’s Call Me Melville festival.

Considered one of the great American novels, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick follows the exploits of Captain Ahab on his journey of revenge against the great white whale of the title, as told by the young adventurer Ishmael, who signs up on Ahab’s ship, The Pequod. It is a work of immense detail, charismatic characters, revenge, and promethean challenging of the gods.

Under the direction of Judy Hegarty Lovett, the production consists of nothing more than actor Conor Lovett, a wooden table, and the effects he creates with his voice, face, and body. Gare St. Lazare is renowned for creating theater that keeps the relationship between the audience and the actor at the very center of each production, and this unique adaptation of Moby-Dick will do just that, with Lovett laid bare on stage, in a solo performance that has been hailed all over his native Ireland but also in the United States and around the world.

For more than 12 years, Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland, which consists of director Judy Hegarty Lovett and actor Conor Lovett, has toured 10 productions playing at over 60 venues in Ireland and over thirty cities worldwide. Since the première of Moby-Dick in Ireland in 2009 it has had significant success on tours including Ireland, the South Bank Centre and festivals in the United States and Shanghai.

General admission tickets to the Berkshire Museum program are $10, members get in for $5. Berkshire Museum located at 39 South Street (Route 7) in Pittsfield, Mass. The Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. For more information, visit Berkshire Museum or call 413.443.7171. Museum admission is $13 for adults and $6 for children under 18. Members and children aged three and under enjoy free admission.

Call 413.662.5204 for information about the MCLA performance.