Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:12am
Has anyone seen this show? I didn't hear a thing about it until I got a mailer yesterday. I am a great lover of literature so the subject matter seems interesting. I would love to hear some thoughts from those who have seen it.
Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:18am
I haven't seen it yet, but the cast recording has been available for awhile now.
Samples
Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:21am
Thought this was a stripped down version of Nick & Nora.
Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:47am
Holy lord, this is a James Joyce/Nora Barnacle musical romance? Will there be songs about fart sniffing? Do they know how infamous those letters have become?
Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:51am
Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:54am
They don't cover the farts, but if anyone is unaware of the letters it's worth a google.
They are hilariously nasty.
Posted: 5/20/16 at 10:54am
Just looked up the site. The lack of self-awareness surrounding this project is a little disconcerting. Also seriously bland music...
Posted: 7/11/16 at 11:30pm
I saw it a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty much a blah evening out, although the cast was fine. The songs are bland and the story is not very interesting, despite the fact that you'd THINK the story of James Joyce should be.
Whitney Bashor was excellent, though!
Posted: 7/12/16 at 12:08am
It didn't feel like the people who wrote this show were smart enough to have written a show like this. Not being that familiar with Joyce, I had fun laughing at it though, which, while not as good as laughing with it, is at least better than being bored or angry. People who hold his work in great esteem might feel differently.
I agree that Bashor was good. Most of the acting was a little flat but she had some nice moments and her singing was gorgeous. There were moments when her voice reminded me of Laura Benanti. I appreciated how hard the ensemble was working even if the characters were pretty over the top. Lucia and the spiders? The way Sylvia Beach was handled was a little disappointing after the way Alison Bechdel contextualizes her involvement in Fun Home.
Some of the songs were pleasant but on the whole they were not very successful as a storytelling device. For example, there was the song with all the Irish (Gaelic?) phrases that was enjoyable... but was also a horrible English lesson for those Italians.
As a romance, it sets you up to be against him from the beginning and then fails to get you invested in their relationship. There's banter and innuendo but there's no passion or heat to it. It's just awkward... and then he gets moody again and you don't understand why she stays with him.
The production is not great though. It's very high school and surprisingly awkward. The actors stand very stiffly when they're not dancing or moving. The staging is baffling at times. It makes the space feel small and difficult to navigate which is weird because it was the home of Company XIV for months and they managed fine.
