'Ulysses' Off-Broadway review — a breakneck run through a James Joyce masterwork
Read our review of Ulysses off Broadway, a stage adaptation of James Joyce’s classic novel created by experimental theatre company Elevator Repair Service.
Summary
- Ulysses is a stage adaptation of James Joyce's masterwork about the lives of numerous characters throughout one day in 1904 Dublin
- Experimental theatre company Elevator Repair Service stages an abridged version of the whole novel in under 3 hours
- The format makes for a fun theatre experience but only a surface-level telling of Joyce's book
Nobody reads books anymore, least of all novels. This is the alarm being sounded by every journalist, researcher, and teacher in every newspaper and magazine you can read (or not read). The theatre company Elevator Repair Service, in true form, solves the crisis by reading for, and to, you. That is the conceit of their Ulysses, a two-and-a-half-hour adaptation of James Joyce’s famously enigmatic, meandering, long literary masterpiece. That ERS is known for an all-day adaptation of The Great Gatsby but comparatively speeds through Ulysses is an interesting, perhaps puzzling choice. You may wonder who would sit through an all-day Ulysses, but fans celebrate it annually with readings and other events on June 16, the day the novel takes place.
ERS doesn’t necessarily suppose that you have read Ulysses or even want to, especially not after coming to their production, which dramatizes at least most of the plot. The entire text of Joyce’s work is projected onto two screens at the back of the theatre, just in case you want to fact-check the group’s loyalty to the text. (Projection design is by Matthew Deinhart.) The ensemble regularly fast-forwards through the novel, clutching the scenery like they’re being thrown by the force of the maneuver in a schtick that gets old quickly. The cast does not break apart scenic design collective dots’s office tables until the second act, when they lean into the unpredictable, no-holds-barred, what is going on-ness of Joyce’s multi-layered story.
Ulysses lends itself quite readily to theatre in this latter half, with Joyce writing parts of the novel like a script and putting his characters in surreal (or at least ridiculous) situations. Ghosts emerge to torment their loved ones, Leopold Bloom (Vin Knight) gives birth to octuplets “with valuable metallic faces,” and the ensemble aims a food fight at Bloom that's a showcase of silliness for props designer Patricia Marjorie.
ERS’s is not the first theatrical adaptation of Ulysses, though many others have focused only on certain episodes or characters. Tackling the whole book is a signature ERS move; the company has cast many of its usual suspects in Ulysses, and none disappoint. Weeks goes from waifish to dominatrix as Martha; Shepherd’s bouncing take on Blazes Boylan becomes a choreographic leitmotif; Kate Benson goes from doctor to sex worker to enraged drunkard in the blink of an eye; and Stevenson’s feline gaze and vocalizations are so perfect that I indeed hoped the cat would come back.
But taking on the whole book is also where ERS's approach falters. They skim the surface of the book’s arguments about the meaning of a nation; for example, they shine a light on the role of the wandering Jew in both the literary and material worlds but shy away from in-depth discussions of Irish nationalism. The early scene between Stephen Dedalus (Christopher-Rashee Stevenson) and his employer, Mr. Deasy (Knight) conveys both the poetry and politics of the former’s proclamation that “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,” but this sentiment is largely drowned out by both the scandalous and the absurd packed into the show.
Ulysses summary
Ulysses is a sprawling story of many characters grappling with the mundane and the existential in Dublin, Ireland on June 16, 1904. Modeled on Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses (the Latin name of Odysseus) follows Leopold Bloom (Knight), a Jewish man trying to come to terms with the mutual infidelities of himself and his wife, singer Molly (Maggie Hoffman). Meanwhile, Joyce’s self-insert character Stephen Dedalus (Stevenson) is haunted by the death of his mother (Stephanie Weeks) and meets Bloom through various mishaps throughout the city, including at a brothel.
Throughout the play, Scott Shepherd — who also serves as dramaturg and co-directs with Elevator Repair Service artistic director John Collins — interjects to explain Joyce’s much-debated writing choices and the story’s different styles, including episodes written as newspaper headlines and the script of a play.
What to expect at Ulysses
Ulysses runs approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, including an intermission. The production uses fog effects on stage. Ulysses is famously vulgar, and Elevator Repair Service’s production features simulated sex, masturbation, birth, and urination and discussions of “every variety of bodily function,” as the program note from Collins and Shepherd says. The play also discusses infidelity, antisemitism, the death of a parent, the death of a child, and childbirth.
Throughout the play, the text of Joyce’s work is projected onto two screens at the back of the theatre, occasionally fast-forwarding as the production skips through parts of the 732-page novel. The sound of tape fast-forwarding repeats throughout the production as the actors jump from chapter to chapter. Shepherd sometimes functions as a narrator, helping the audience stay as grounded as they can be in the fast-paced story.
What audiences are saying about Ulysses
There has not yet been much online discussion of Ulysses, but comments on social media have been mostly positive.
- Artist Chris Herbie Holland commented on Instagram, “I GOTTA see ERS tackle” Joyce’s work.
- Actor Emily Perkins-Margolin wrote on Facebook that she “LOVED” the new adaptation.
- Reddit user u/Working_Week_8784 wrote that the production “captured much of the spirit of the book, the flavor of Joyce’s language, and the personalities of the characters.”
Read more audience reviews of Ulysses on Show-Score.
Who should see Ulysses
- If you enjoyed (or missed, or had complicated feelings about) Elevator Repair Service’s acclaimed Great Gatsby adaptation Gatz, you’ll want to check out their Ulysses. Though the source text is much longer, the show is much shorter.
- Fans of independent and experimental theatre will want to return to the Public, the former home of the entire Under the Radar Festival of which Ulysses is a part, to see how Ulysses fits in with the rest of the festival’s offerings.
- If you liked last summer’s The Counterfeit Opera at Little Island, you won’t want to miss cast member Vin Knight’s take on Leopold Bloom.
Learn more about Ulysses off Broadway
In a novel, balancing the serious, scandalous, and silly is more easily undertaken by a reader who can assess the work as both the sum of its parts and as distinct components. On stage, is such an assessment possible? Can a play take this role? Should it? Elevator Repair Service’s Ulysses is both a fun night at the theatre and a cultural outing that may make you feel smarter, but it is not invested in these questions.
Photo credit: Ulysses off Broadway. (Photos by Joan Marcus)
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