Adaptation and Director: Séamus Rae
Musical Director: Jamie Powe
James Joyce’s short story The Dead, the final and longest in his anthology Dubliners, was once described by T.S. Eliot as one of the greatest ever written. The tale of Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta starts at a traditional Twelfth Night party hosted by Conroy’s aunts, at which there is much singing and merriment until the rendition of a traditional Irish air ushers in a more contemplative mood.
The Fourth Choir, an ensemble of professional and skilled amateur LGBTQ+ singers, has used the short story as the narrative backbone of a concert that demonstrates the strength and quality of their unaccompanied singing.
The story is narrated by Niamh Cusack, who wears an elegant emerald gown from the Joyceian period that stands out against the contemporary black dress of the choir. Director Séamus Rae allows Cusack to make full use of Wilton’s multilevel stage, weaving her way through the choir.
It initially feels strange for a concert in mid-January to feature Christmas music, especially when modern festivities take up the whole of Advent and Twelfth Night is no longer the event it once was. But the chosen music, including Rhona Clarke’s compositions that turn medieval texts into Carole, offers a glimpse into how the festive period of the early twentieth century continued the celebrations into the new year.
As Cusack recites the story of the party, bringing to life Joyce’s characters from the elderly Morkan sisters to acclaimed tenor Bartell D’Arcy, the number of references to music and song within the story reveals why it is such a good match for this particular structure.
Perhaps the only wariness one might have is that Cusack reads the story from a few sheets of less-than-pristine A4. While in her hand, it feels rather less appropriate than the rest of the setting. However, at the end of each segment of narration and as the singing recommences, how she discards her papers becomes part of the storytelling. One set is flung in the air at the height of the partying; later on, they fall gently from the hand as her characters are lost in thought and grief.
As the party dissipates and the revellers walk through the icy slush of Dublin’s pavements, the second act moves away from the carols and jubilation into a more sombre, contemplative air. Cusack effortlessly expresses the change in tone as Gabriel and Gretta discuss her first love, of whom she has been reminded by a rendition of The Lass of Aughrim (a piece performed here in an arrangement by Fourth Choir’s musical director Jamie Powe).
It starkly contrasts the jollity of the party, taking us into Gabriel’s initial jealousy, Gretta’s emotional retelling of how her love died, and the overwhelming sense of mortality that Joyce expresses so well. The song choices here include Joyce’s own Bid Adieu and, as the story ends with a contemplation of snow falling over all of Ireland, Bo Holten’s exquisite First Snow.
If either the choral work or the story narration were presented alone, they would be warm, welcome events for a winter’s evening, marking the transition from Christmas celebration to the darker winter beyond. Woven together like this, though, James Joyce’s The Dead achieves something remarkable, each side of the art elevating the other. Joyce’s prose and the warmth of Cusack’s narration heighten the emotional heft of the exemplary choral work. And the performance of the Fourth Choir, their thirty-odd voices filling Wilton’s with sonorous solemnity with grace notes of light and life, is lifted too.
Joyce’s tale invites us to discard the Christmas merriment and move onwards into winter, reflecting on what has been – but to do so with a heart full of hope for what is to come. One could not wish to greet the new year in better company.
Continues until 15 January 2025