44.
GIBRALTAR
Back
in 1958, Zero Mostel’s career as a stage actor to contend with took a major
step forward when he played the Dublin Jew, Leopold Bloom, in the long run, Off-Broadway
production of ULYSSES IN NIGHTTOWN (unsuccessfully revived on Broadway in 1974). This was
Marjorie Barkentin’s adaptation of the Walpurgisnicht section of James Joyce’s
controversial modern classic, ULYSSES. Now, in the intimate downstairs venue at
the Irish Repertory Theatre, Patrick Fitzgerald, a trim actor who could not be
more unlike the hulking Mostel physically, vocally, or ethnicity-wise, has
undertaken the role, while also writing the script, which he adapted from another
part of the novel into a generally viable, if not altogether successful, stage
play. Joyce’s densely written novel, famous for its stream of consciousness
style and many provocative religious and sexual references (which led to its
being banned as late as the early 1960s) is difficult enough to read; turning
it into a play, where the audience must grasp everything as soon as it’s said,
is an awesome task. This is compounded by the likelihood that most theatregoers
probably never read the original or, if they have, probably don't remember it.
A further obstacle is created by adapting the material for only two actors, one
of whom (Fitzgerald) plays Leopold and three lesser roles, and the other (Cara
Seymour) eleven roles, including the magnificent one of Molly Bloom.
Fitzgerald must be given kudos for
making the slightly less than two-hour production (with a brief, five-minute
intermission) hold the audience’s attention, despite the often hard-to-follow,
episodic structure, which focuses only on the book’s second half; what
transpires happens in a single day (June 16, 1904) in the life of Leopold and Molly,
his Gibraltar-born wife, who has not had sex with her spouse for ten years,
since the death of their infant son. The day, is broken up into eight episodes,
but omits a number of major characters; it follows the Blooms, even when they
are visibly taking care of nature’s call, and concludes with the unfaithful Molly
giving her famously earthy, stream-of-consciousness soliloquy (composed in
eight enormously long sentences) as she ruminates in bed about, among many other
things, when she first fell in love with Leopold and agreed to have sex with
him, thereby concluding the play (and the novel) with “yes I said yes I will
Yes.”
Sarah Bacon, who designed both the
set and costumes, provides for the former a workable space defined by a black
upstage wall consisting of scrim within a framework that allows for the opening
of a door and window; as day turns to night, the wall behind the scrim lights
up with stars. A bed at one side (the head of the big guy in front of me made
seeing the action here difficult) and a kitchen at the other, with an outhouse
toilet in the middle provide functional units within the space. And the minimal
costumes (too few to distinguish all of Ms. Seymour’s roles from one another)
capture the period well
Ultimately, this is a performance
piece with tour-de-force roles for two actors. Having been unimpressed by Mr.
Fitzgerald’s rather dull work in last season’s KATIE ROCHE at the Mint, I was
pleasantly surprised by the vocal and physical variety, as well as the expressive
interpretation, he gives to Joyce’s lines; still, he doesn’t convince me he is Joyce’s
paunchy Jew. More effective is Ms. Seymour, even though she isn’t able to
sharply differentiate all her characterizations from one another. I thought her
very fine delivery of the lengthy soliloquy was just shy of truly outstanding
because it needed a few more fireworks to vary its mood.
In spite of Terry Kinney’s intelligent direction and the
often difficult but nonetheless poetically fascinating, and frequently funny,
passages in the word-play filled narrative and dialogue sections, little that
is straightforwardly dramatic happens in GIBRALTAR. All is storytelling (Fitzgerald
created two roles for this function, Narrator, played by himself, and Muse,
played by Ms. Seymour), conversation, and reminiscence, and without more
knowledge of the book some of this can be muddy going. Were the show not closing
on Sunday, June 30, I’d advise that some theatergoers would find GIBRALTAR mildly
satisfying as a primer on part of a famous novel; that others would disregard the
lack of a strong dramatic conflict and just revel in Joyce’s brilliant language
well performed; and that others, like me, would consider it highly respectable but not
fully satisfying as theatre.
A final note: as I left the subway station at 23rd and 6th, the first person I saw on my way to GIBRALTAR was this man, walking down 6th Ave. Of course, he had nothing to do with the show, but the coincidence was too good to pass by without taking a picture. I thought it might have some spiritual connection to the show, though, perhaps meaning that I should be ready for a perfect, leak free (waterproof) experience. However, when I got to the box office, they didn't have my tickets because I'd made a scheduling error. They squeezed me in, though, but I entered the general admission seating too late, and was forced to sit in the last row where I saw more of the white hair in front of me than I did of the show. The experience was not quite as waterproof as I had hoped for.
