Blooming Ulysses – Bewley’s Café Theatre, Dublin

Writer: James Joyce

Adaptor: Gerry Farrell

The stairs up to Bewley’s Café Theatre are lively today. There are some very jaunty straw boater hats and a striped blazer or two. We are seated beside a lovely American gentleman, David, who has travelled to Ireland especially for our annual Bloomsday Festival.

A short, comedic adaptation by Gerry Farrell of Irish writer James Joyce’s masterpiece, Blooming Ulysses is part of the programme of events that celebrate the anniversary of a single day in the life of protagonist, Leopold Bloom, as he goes about his business in and around Dublin.

The title of Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, is the Latin version of the Greek name Odysseus. It is based loosely on Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. The book’s 18 episodes echo Odysseus’ journey home to his wife, Penelope, in Ithaca after the Trojan War. Each hour in Bloom’s life corresponds to a year in that of Odysseus’.

It is Thursday, June 16th, 1904 and after the opening lyrical rendition of a passage from Cyclops (episode 9), we find ourselves in the kitchen of Leopold and Molly Bloom at number 7, Eccles street. Though dapper in his Edwardian garb, Gerry Farrell looks suspiciously unlike a 38 year old ad canvasser of Jewish-Hungarian descent as he prepares a breakfast of “gizzard’s heart, liver and grilled mutton kidneys” which had “a faint tang of faintly scented urine” (episode 4/ Calypso).

This notion is fleeting and quickly forgotten. Farrell proceeds to brilliantly traverse “the weight, volume and intensity” of a scattering of episodes, having carefully selected excerpts to best entertain a modern live audience. Joyce’s bawdy humour disgusts and delights us in equal measure; “he (Bloom) began to feel heavy, full, then a gentle loosening of his bowels”. Afterwards, in the “jacks”, he wipes himself clean with part of his magazine “Tit-Bits”. Little Alf Bergen describes Joe Brady’s “tool” after his hanging; “when they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker” (episode 12/ Cyclops). Reflecting on the burial process at Dignam’s funeral, Bloom remarks that “there would be more room if they buried them standing up” (episode 6/ Hades).

But contiguous to his portrayal of the wit and homely banter of Joyce’s ordinary Dubliners in Barney Kiernan’s Pub and elsewhere, Farrell is extraordinary in his recall of the Writer’s ingenious, though lengthy, soliloquies and monologues. Bloom’s protracted streams of consciousness in Ulysses are the stuff of legend yet Farrell delivers them with aplomb.

If Joyce is a national treasure then so too is Gerry Farrell because he has made the story of Leopold Bloom, from one of the most daunting and intimidating books in the English language, accessible to us all.

Back on Grafton street, David is asking for directions to Sweny’s Pharmacy on Lincoln Place, where Bloom bought Molly a bar of lemon scented soap. They sell it still. As for me, well, the sun is scorching so I’m off to see if I can buy one of those straw boater hats.

Runs until June 17th 2023.