Edna O’Brien continues her tradition of exploring the unwritten lives of women in this new play. Moving these mid-1900s women to centre stage reverses the patriarchal tendency of literary history and O’Brien’s foray into the theatre, heralds a powerful force at work.
James Joyce, the acclaimed Irish writer, lived in self-imposed exile in Trieste, Paris and Zurich in early 20th century. His mission was to “forge the uncreated conscience of my race” and this he did through the much celebrated short stories Dubliners and the stream of consciousness novels Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. Joyce’s genius and impact on the modern novel is undisputed. In this play the renowned Irish author Edna O’Brien gives an insight to the lives of the women encircling Joyce; his mother May Joyce (Deirdre Donnelly) his wife Nora Barnacle (Brid Ni Neachtain) and his daughter Lucia, played by Genevieve Hulme Beaman. In viewing Joyce through the lens of these women’s lives, O’Brien illuminates his flaws as a son, a husband and a father, resulting in a diminishment of the mythology surrounding Joyce and revealing him as an imperfect human.
Was it Joyce’s fame or the family’s nomadic, impoverished lifestyle that impacted so negatively on the lives of those who loved him? Both wife and daughter vie for his attention and their antagonistic relationship is well portrayed in O’Brien’s playscript. Lucia’s untrammelled passion and violence and her parents’ inability to cope leads to her eventual incarceration in a mental asylum, a harrowing event which is conveyed to the audience through a film sequence. This embedding of a film in the onstage action is disconcerting (and overly long and perhaps warrants a separate work in its own right). A shorter portrayal would refocus on Nora Barnacle who emerges in this production as an enervated character. Stephen Hogan’s demonstration of Joyce’s infatuation with the young Nora, seems improbable in this portrayal of her more-sullen-than-sultry personality. Conversely, Deirdre Donnelly’s ghostly appearances as Joyce’s mother are more akin to an avenging angel than a woman worn out by illness, poverty, childbearing, infant mortality and an errant husband. Harriet Weaver, a patron and stalwart supporter of Joyce is rendered as an ineffectual being while the peripheral character of Martha Fleischmann, Joyce’s short-term mistress, played by Caitriona Ni Mhurchu, gives her undue prominence, although it offers opportunities to include instances from Joyce’s work. Stanislaus, Joyce’s brother (Patrick Moy) appears briefly as a disagreeable character, resentful of Nora’s influence on Joyce.
Brigitte Zimmerman, played by Hilda Fay, the owner of the guesthouse where Nora lodges, is an anchor to the onstage drama, providing a listening ear for Nora’s reminisces and an objective observer to the family drama being enacted.
The presence of an onstage balladeer, Zozimus, functions like a Greek chorus and punctuates the drama with reminders of Joyce’s umbilical ties to Dublin, the city which despite his years of exile, provides the settings of his famous works. Although the songs, ably sung by Bill Murphy, and the character Zozimus are somewhat anachronistic, stemming from differing periods in Dublin’s history, they provide relief from the tension of the deteriorating interfamily relationships and allude to Joyce’s prowess as a prize winning tenor.
O’Brien’s powerful depiction of Joyce’s family life gives a rewarding insight to his writing. The mirroring of Lucia’s rantings with excerpts from Finnegan’s Wake, Joyce’s most ambitious work which explodes the boundaries of language, implies that she has become his muse, a situation that sours Nora and suggests the rational for the mother daughter strife.
Ben Ormerod’s sombre lighting draws the audience into the intimacy of the family and Sabine Dargent’s set juxtaposes their artistic inclinations with spartan poverty. In her design and choice of Nora’s and Lucia’s costumes, Joan O’Casey underscores their altering roles in the course of the play.
These theatrical elements of Joyce’s Women combine into an immersive experience for the audience. This Edna O’Brien play, written to mark the centenary year of the publication of Joyce’s Ulysses, offers an intriguing perspective on his life which lingers long after the curtain closes.
Joyce’s Women is essential viewing for Joyce lovers and a must-see for O’Brien fans.
Excellent
The Review's Hub Score
