by Raphael Badagliacca
Yes! Yes! and Yes! Aedin Moloney gives us Molly Bloom.
Photo by Carol Rosegg
She does this with words, song and movements full of grace on a bare, intimate stage.
In this way, she meets the daunting challenge of externalizing one of the iconic interior monologues in all of fiction. If you feel you met Molly Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses; after this performance, you know her.
Attitude is also a dance term. It’s the body’s expression of an inner feeling. The actress uses it in excellent fashion to tell the story of Molly’s thoughts, memories, observations and desires — the things that make up the only female point of view and the last words in Joyce’s novel of a single day in Dublin.
In the book, Molly is stationary, lying in bed with husband Leopold Bloom. On this stage she is alone, as one always is with one’s thoughts, traveling about the stage, as thoughts travel, delivering Molly’s stream of consciousness.
Just as Joyce’s Ulysses is an interpretation of the ancient poem – with Leopold and Molly Bloom as modern correspondents to Odysseus and Penelope – so this staged production is an interpretation of Joyce’s Molly Bloom — one that lets us see her, and hear her, and know her.
I can’t think of a better compliment.
by James Joyce adapted for stage by Aedin Moloney & Colum McCann
directed by Kara Simring; performed by Aedin Moloney; presented in association with Gabriel Byrne
Scenic design by Charlie Corcoran; costume design by Leon Dobrowski; lighting design by Michael O’Connor; sound design by M. Florian Staab; production stage manager, Jeff Davolt; general manager, Lisa Fane.
