'I Am a Ship,' Martha Pichey's Play About Women on Whale Ships, Comes to Duck Creek

Playwright Martha Pichey has a lot going on these days — not only the off-Broadway premiere of her play “Ashes & Ink,” which opens October 16 at AMT Theater in Manhattan (and was presented as a staged reading at the JDTLab at Guild Hall back in 2015), but also a local presentation of her brand new play which was inspired by the industry that dominated much of the East End in the 19th century.

We’re talking whaling, of course, and this Saturday, the Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs presents a staged reading of Pichey’s script “I Am a Ship,” directed by Meg Gibson, who lives in Sag Harbor.

“This is the first public airing of ‘I Am a Ship’ and it’s so great after a five or six year iteration,” said Pichey in a recent phone interview.

“I Am a Ship” is a two-character play that opens with Pearl (Jocelyn Kuritsky), a modern day woman who has lost her husband unexpectedly and moves back to her childhood home with her three sons. It’s there that she rediscovers the journal of her great-great-great-grandmother, Eliza (Ma Yaa Boateng), who was the wife of a whaling captain and went to sea with her husband. As she dives into Eliza’s 1858 writings detailing her experiences aboard the whaling ship Superior, Pearl not only finds a diversion from her pain and grief, eventually, she also discovers the hope and strength she needs to carry on.

“She would like nothing more than to escape the life she has, dive under the duvet and say, ‘leave me alone,’” Pichey explained. “The play moves back and forth in time, with Eliza writing in her journal and sometimes saying it out loud, and sometimes we’re back in Pearl’s attic bedroom with her reading it.”

The connection between the two characters is deepened through objects in Pearl’s life that had once been used by Eliza. Even the home Pearl lives in was constructed from parts of the Superior, the ship her ancestor had sailed on.

“Things in the journal are propelling Pearl to bear witness to her own pain,” she continued. “She’s finding a way to come to terms with her own grief and move forward in a world she didn’t expect to be in without her husband.”

Pichey, a part-time Shelter Island resident, has done extensive local research on the topic of women and whaling, and her own journey with “I Am a Ship” actually began back in 2018 at a program called “Maritime Mash-Ups” which was presented at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum and the Shelter Island Historical Society. Her piece “Drowning on Dry Land,” about a whaling captain’s wife who was desperate to go to sea, was presented at the event with actors reading journal entries of 19th century women who had actually done exactly that.

“I was also weaving it into my own background,” added Pichey of the plot points in “I Am a Ship.” “I was obsessed with the New Bedford Whaling Museum as a child, my dad’s hometown. And I was compelled to draw from personal experience for modern-day Pearl after finding myself widowed with young children at the age of 48.”

Other inspirations for the historic aspects of the play came from whaling archives at the Mystic Seaport Museum and Martha’s Vineyard Museum. But perhaps her biggest inspiration of all was Joan Druett’s 1992 book “She Was a Sister Sailor: Mary Brewster’s Whaling Journals 1845-1851.”

“‘Sister Sailor’ is like the Bible,” explained Pichey. “On the surface, it’s a very detailed account of Mary Brewster’s journal, but her footnotes are like half the book, and so many are about other women who went to sea. It’s fascinating.

As a result, “I Am a Ship” is not just one woman’s story, rather it’s a combination of quite a few real-life whaling wives. Among them was Sag Harbor’s Eliza Edwards, who went to sea with her husband, Captain Eli H. Edwards, in 1857 and lived in the Hawaiian Islands while he traveled on to pursue whales in the western Pacific Ocean.

In addition to Druett’s book, Pichey was also inspired to write this script by Bridgehampton artist Bastienne Schmidt when she spoke with her at an art exhibition at the Whaling Museum some years ago.

“Bastienne said she had discovered that women and children had gone to sea. I had no idea so it was actually Bastienne who inspired me,” said Pichey.

She went on to explain that the captain had to pay the company to bring his wife on board the ship. Once at sea, often the women took on jobs to help manage the ship and the crew.

“Sometimes they would knit socks for the men on board, or they were in charge of the medicine chest or they’d make rope,” Pichey explained. “One woman would go lance sharks around the ship. I thought a lot about that.”

Without giving too much away, in Pichey’s script when the Superior pulls into Valparaiso, Chile, with many of the crew members disabled from contracting typhoid, it is Eliza who takes on an important job.

“It’s Eliza’s role to learn navigation to sail the ship,” she said.

Besides the actors portraying Pearl and Eliza this weekend, the tone of the staged reading will also be supported and enhanced by the inclusion of traditional music of the whaling era.

“It’s a work in progress and we really want to incorporate as much music as possible,” Pichey said. “We have this great young guy, John Drinkwater, who will sing chanteys — he’s like the Greek chorus of the crew. Our composer, Estelle Bajou, had written a ballad — ‘Go I to Sea.’ She will be with us on mandolin, providing instrumental transitions.”

Creative producer Gillian Gordon, who has a home in East Hampton, became involved in the project after she saw the 2018 Mash-Up performance, and during COVID-19, while Pichey was staying on Shelter Island, she began working with her on “I Am a Ship.”

“I had all these ideas of projections on sails, all sorts of things and maybe that will eventually come to pass,” said Pichey. “Every step of the way, she’s read every draft as well as Meg Gibson, who’s the director now. Meg’s an actress who lives in Sag Harbor and is married to a playwright and she was brought on this spring.

“One thing I love about theater is it is a collaborative process. I lose my way, things get convoluted, but every week this summer, Meg came to work with me on my porch on Shelter Island,” continued Pichey. “She was also something of a dramaturg.”

Now, with just two actors and one or two musicians, Pichey envisions great potential going forward with “I Am a Ship.” She sees the play as a production that can be staged fairly simply in any number of intriguing and atmospheric locations.

“The hope is this is just the beginning. I could see it performed on the Charles Morgan,” she said, referring to the preserved 19th century whaling vessel based at the Mystic Seaport Museum, “or traveling to whaling museums.

“I’m really glad I persisted with it and that it’s found a new form,” Pichey added. “I’m glad I kept with it.”

“I Am a Ship,” a play reading with live music, will be presented on Saturday, September 14, from 5 to 7 p.m. on the outdoor stage at the Arts Center at Duck Creek, 127 Squaw Road, East Hampton. The rain date is Sunday, September 15, 5 to 7 p.m. Admission is free, but registration encouraged at duckcreekarts.org.