Off-B'way Review: Ulysses

The company of Ulysses.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The innovative theater collective Elevator Repair Service has tackled such literary giants as Fitzgerald (Gatz, its day-long version of The Great Gatsby), Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury) and Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises). The 35-year-old company is now taking on the greatest challenge in its history by brining to the stage what is generally regarded as one of the most confounding literary masterpieces, James Joyce’ Ulysses. The 1922 massive tome chronicles a single day—June 16, 1904—in Dublin, following the wanderings of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and the young Stephen Dedalus, paralleling Homer’s epic The Odyssey. Joyce experiments with style and form, switches genres with each chapter and has the characters express their inner thoughts. We are told in an onstage intro that one critic famously said that not much happens in Ulysses, apart from everything you can possibly imagine. 

Is it even possible to stage such a work which relies so heavily on interior monologues and so little on plot in theatrical terms? Burgess Meredith directed an adaptation of the phantasmagoric Nightgown section (Bloom venturing into Dublin’s red-light district and his own imagination) Off-Broadway in 1958 starring Zero Mostel which was revived on Broadway in 1974. Here director John Collins and co-director Scott Shepherd are taking on the work as a whole, or at least an edited version. While some of the sections are bogged down in attempts to dramatize Joyce’s literary excesses and tend to drag, this adaptation does capture the vital energy of the author’s vivid characters, his deep themes of sexuality, religion and literature, and the emergence of Dublin itself as a life force.    

Stephanie Weeks, Scott Shepherd,
and Dee Baesnael in Ulysses.
Credit: Joan Marcus

In his onstage introduction, Shepherd, who also is credited with dramaturgy and playing many roles, explains that Joyce “put so many enigmas and puzzles into Ulysses that it would keep the professors busy for centuries arguing about what he meant, and that’s how he would insure his immortality.” Collins and Shepherd make no attempt to unravel those enigmas and puzzles, but present them for us to contemplate and perhaps solve on our own. The cast alternates between narrating the book and enacting the action. They are initially seated at a panel and gradually step out to fully play the scenes. The text is projected onto screens in front of the panel. When they skip over a section, the projected words zip ahead and the actors pretend to fast forward, jerking their bodies as if they were images on sped-up film. This device is amusing the first few times, but grows repetitive. 

Vin Knight, Kate Benson, and Scott Shepherd
in Ulysses.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Fortunately, the majority of Joyce’s narrative is rendered with humor, passion, and imagination. The tables transform into numerous pubs, restaurants and offices and Marika Kent’s lighting and Ben Williams’ sound create each setting with telling details. The cast eat, drink, dream, and fornicate, as an onstage clock notes their progress through the day. By the play’s end the stage is littered with food, papers and other debris and we have experienced much of the human condition including Bloom’s searching for sexual fulfillment and asserting his Jewish identity, Molly’s sensual exploration of her desires for her husband and other lovers, and Daedalus’ yearning for a father figure through literature.

The seven-member cast ably creates a multitude of Dublin denizens, particularly Stephanie Weeks who applies a delightful array of accents and personae. I also enjoyed Kate Benson’s scruffy pub crawler and seedy prostitute. Vin Knight gives us a relatable, befuddled and desperate Bloom, searching for meaning amid the confusion and fog in Joyce’s maze of meaning, stumbling in and out of dreams. Maggie Hoffman subtly and expertly delivers Molly’s famous “Yes” monologue which concludes the evening. Shepherd, Dee Beasnael, and Christopher Rashee-Stevenson complete the admirable ensemble.

Jan. 25—March 1. Public Theater, Elevator Repair Service, and Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 45 mins. including intermission. public theater.org.