Dispatches from the festival frontlines.
Posted by Beth Jenkins
in Go Fest Yourself
"It's his fault I'm adulteress." Molly (Carly Tarett) states with a soft brogue, nodding toward the bundle of bedding that represents Leopold (Poley) Bloom. There's little in her opening remark to tell us how she feels or what, exactly, that fault might be. So we listen, as Molly in lusty, earthy but almost innocent terms, lifts Joyce's words of the page.
Though Tarett uses stage space well, the emotional atmosphere is not so varied. In almost the same tone, she describes her adulterous bedding of Hugh, the temptation she felt when young Stephen stayed a night at the Bloom's home, the loss of her infant son, and her daughters leaving home to attend school. Somewhere in the flow of words, we learn a bit about her girlhood in Gibraltar, the first time she met Leopold, and the reason that it's his fault she's committed a sin that in Biblical times would have earned her a death by stoning. But - the detail is lost in the flow of words.
If it was Peter McGarry's intention - in adapting James Joyce for the stage and directing Tarett's performance - to leave the audience wondering what, exactly, has happened, then he has succeeded.
Three out of five stars.
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