Tag: North Shore Fish

Final Weekend to see Horovitz’s Play “North Shore Fish”

Posted on by Vickie & Peter

NSFecardSee what people are saying about North Shore Fish Boston Globe, GDT & us

 

Gloucester Stage’s North Shore Fish will touch you deeply

Posted on by Vickie & Peter
Florence( Aimee Doherty) and Porker( Thomas Phillip O'Neill) photo: Gary Ng
Florence (Aimee Doherty) and Porker (Thomas Phillip O’Neill) photo: Gary Ng

Israel Horowitz’s Pulitzer-nominated “North Shore Fish” premiered at Gloucester Stage in 1986, has since been produced off Broadway in New York City, then all over the world, adapted into a TV movie in 1997 and is back at Gloucester Stage again with an excellent cast, whose performances will have you riveted from the very first scene.

Yes, it’s fun to hear the names of familiar Gloucester places batted about by actors on a stage.  And the fish processing set, replete with real lockers, production line, shrink wrapper and plenty of doors to slam will take anyone who’s ever labored in food service or production right back to work.  Plus, I have to admit I was eager to see Tip O’Neill’s grandson,  Thomas Phillip O’Neill in one of the lead roles as Porker.

While any of these, along with the fact that many consider North Shore Fish to be one of Israel Horowitz’s best plays, would be reason enough go see it, the REAL reason is that Gloucester Stage’s production of North Shore Fish will make you think and feel in ways you’ve never experienced before.  That’s what good theatre does — and this is theatre at its best.

According to Horovitz, “North Shore Fish, to my thinking, is a play about love and dignity in the workplace.”  You might ask yourself, well what else is there?  What else do we really want besides love and dignity and work that matters?  North Shore Fish will help you appreciate what you have and question your priorities.  And you’ll realize that this drama doesn’t happen only in Gloucester.  That’s why North Shore Fish has universal appeal.

If you’re a Cape Ann Resident, you can see this play for a mere twenty bucks this Wednesday or Thursday at 8pm.  North Shore Fish only runs through this Sunday, August 4.  It would be a shame if you missed it.  Call box office at 978-281-4433 for tickets.

Chickity Check It!- “Tale of 2 fisheries on stage and at the dock Play’s ’80s packing plant a far cry from today” By Gail McCarthy Staff Writer Gloucester Daily Times

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

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By Gail McCarthy Staff Writer Gloucester Daily Times

The 1986 setting for the play “North Shore Fish” — now showing at Gloucester Stage resuming Wednesday night — hints at a foreboding crisis in the fishing industry that started as a trickle in the mid-1980s, and has become a veritable deluge in 2013.

But while the dwindling fish landings feeding into the background story for the Israel Horovitz play continue into the 21st century, it is under dramatically different circumstances.

Local fishermen today are fighting to maintain their livelihood against the pressures of a federal bureaucracy they believe wants to shut them down, but the workers who manned the plentiful fish processing plants in the 1980s and in Horovitz’s play faced a vanishing way of life due to automation, foreign competition and eventually, yes, a dwindling number of landings.

In the mid-1980s, millions of pounds of fish were landed daily by the Gloucester-based fleet — compared to the landings at the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange on Harbor Loop last Thursday, which was 7,700 pounds.

For the entire article click here to read it at The Gloucester Daily Times Site