Thar she blows! Again! Off the West Coast!

Rinde Eckert's And God Created Great Whales — which first surfaced for a month at Dance Theatre Workshop's Bessie Schonberg Theatre beginning June 1, 2000; then was sighted on for six weeks commencing on Aug. 20, 2000, at 45 Bleecker Theatre; netted an Obie Award on May 21, 2001; and then lived to spout once more at 45 Bleeker, Dec. 7-Jan. 13, 2002 — will have its first sighting off the Pacific when the show plays three days, Feb. 7-9, at the Newmark Theatre in Portland, OR.

The show is a co-production of Portland Center Stage and PICA.

Tickets are $20, PCS and PICA subscribers; $23, others. The Newmark is located at 1111 SW Broadway at Main, Call (503) 274-6588 (PCS) or (503) 242-1419 (PICA).

* Taking its title from a Biblical quote used in Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," Great Whales investigates the mind of an artist through a composer whose brain is slowly being destroyed by a disease. Every morning, the gifted man must press "Play" on the tape recorder around his neck to remember who he is and what he's doing. What he's doing is desperately trying to finish his opera on "Moby Dick" before the disease destroys too much of him to complete it.

—By Robert Simonson