|
Chicago in Bloom
Following on the heels of the very successful run of Tom Murphy’s Bailegangaire,
Irish Repertory of Chicago’s 2004 season resumes in June with the world
premiere staging of A Dublin Bloom, an adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
This production is Irish Rep’s contribution to the worldwide “Bloomsday
100” celebration, marking one hundred years since the most famous day in
literary history, the June day in 1904 when Leopold Bloom, Molly Bloom,
and Stephen Dedalus set out on their individual journeys through the streets
and dreams of turn-of-the-century Dublin.
A Dublin Bloom is written by best-selling novelist and playwright Dermot
Bolger. “Dermot focused on first clarifying the story’s essential narrative
elements, then finding a theatrically interesting way to tell that story,”
says Bloom’s director Matt O’Brien. “It’s clearly about a man, a woman,
and their ‘son’ trying to reconnect. At the same time, the script celebrates,
with theatrical analogy, the variety and surprise of the book. It allows
everything from a medieval dumb-show to a Marx Brothers-like courtroom scene
during the Nighttown segment.”
O’Brien continued, “Molly’s monologue, which ends the book in one long
stream-of-consciousness chapter, has been broken into ‘signpost’ segments
throughout the play, her reflections on certain other characters serving
as introductions to Bloom’s experience with those characters that day. The
end result is a very physical and very literate play about exploration,
loss, and reconciliation. A beautiful piece of work, funny, frank, and in
the end, incredibly moving.”
A Dublin Bloom begins performances on June 2, 2004, opening on Saturday
June 5 and running through June 27 at the 190-seat Victory Gardens Theater
on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. Tickets will be priced from $30 to $42. For
tickets, please call the box office at (773) 871-3000. For other information
contact the Irish Rep at (773) 248-7700 or online at
www.irishrep.com
|
