Prologue: The act begins with the gang leitmotifs established musically. The curtain rises. A conflict between two rival gangs, the Lobstermen and the Fishermen , is enacted through dance. The tension between the gangs is quite visible. The men are struggling for control of selling lobster. When you are a Jet, your Jet!
Seriously, some turf wars are occuring in Maine over whether fisherman can sell their lobster bycatch from trawling for cod, haddock, and other groundfish. Things are not going to be pretty next week when all this goes before the Maine Legislature. The current law, and the only one like it, in the U.S. is that it is illegal land lobster not caught in traps. Best quote…
“They ruined their fishery totally,” David Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said of the groundfishermen. “Now they’re looking to us to bail them out, and it’s just not going to happen. No way. There are 6,400 lobstermen that will go nuts if they even consider it.”
The response from the other gang…
“Bug pickers,” Lendall Alexander, 47, a third-generation fisherman from Harpswell, Me., said of the lobstermen. “They’ve got all that lobster to themselves.”
The only real question is whether two starry eyed lovers from opposite sides of the track will be able to bring peace to Maine.
