Performances May 23 & 24, 2013
National Theater - Oslo, Norway
Featuring: Ruth Maleczech & Paul Kandel
Written and Directed by Sharon Fogarty
Written and Directed by Sharon Fogarty
Set and Lighting Design: Jim Clayburgh
Music: Carter Burwell
Projection Design: Julie Archer
Choreography: J’aime Morrison
Costume Design: Meganne George
Additional writing: Lee Breuer
WITH
Lucia: Ruth Maleczech
Mr. Joyce: Paul Kandel
DESCRIPTION
Lucia's Chapters explores the life of Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce. As a young woman in Paris, her life was filled with artists and intellectuals. She was a dancer and a painter. Her father believed Lucia had inherited his genius. While still in her twenties, her behavior grew erratic. Admitted to a mental hospital at age 27, Lucia spent the next fifty years in confinement, until her death in 1982. This “fascinating and fantastic journey” (Boston Globe) imagines Lucia Joyce reflecting, as she navigates through the afterlife. As her journey unfolds, Lucia's unique role in the Joyce literary legacy is illuminated. Lucia's Chapters reveals a brilliant yet deeply troubled woman who is, perhaps, ultimately best understood through her startling appearances in her father's final book Finnegans Wake. With richly textured visuals "in keeping with the avant-garde agenda and technological playfulness of Mabou Mines" (Irish Independent) and an evocative score, Lucia's Chapters is an exquisite sensory experience.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
The Charlestown Working Theater – June, 2007
Cal State at Fresno – July, 2007
Kilkenny Arts Festival – August, 2009
1st Irish Festival @ PS122 - September, 2011
AWARDS
2008 Elliot Norton Award Nominee – Best Visiting Production
2011 1st Irish Festival Award - Best Design
2011 1st Irish Festival Nominee - Ruth Maleczech - Best Actress
Nominated for 5 American Theater Wing Hewes Awards (for Design)
Sharon talks about Lucia's Chapters
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"Fogarty has created a beautiful and deeply thoughtful ode to a tragic and forgotten woman, but it is Maleczech who fights with all her soul for every scrap of Lucia's dignity and value. This production will leave you breathless. Please go see it."
-Alyssa Simon - nytheatre.com
"What sustains her (Maleczech), and the audience, is a defiance so blistering that it nearly burns the theater down."
-Jason Fitzgerald - Backstage
"Mabou Mines' incandescent theatrical creation pulls her (Lucia Joyce) back to the surface and gives Lucia, however briefly, her own chance to blaze and shimmer."
-Olivia Jane Smith - New York Theatre Review
"Maleczech is riveting as the elderly Lucia...It is a remarkable performance...such high quality acting and production values you kind of wonder why it is "downtown" and not at, say, BAM or Lincoln Center."
-Andy Horwitz - CULTUREBOT
"Ruth Maleczech is one of the finest actresses in New York. She's also one of the most courageous..."
-The Irish Echo
"...Maleczech holds the stage like a true master..."
-Sophie Gorman - The Independent (Ireland)
“…a fascinating and fantastic journey”
- Boston Globe
"...in keeping with the avant-garde agenda and technological playfulness of Mabou Mines..."
-Peter Crawley - Irish Times
“…theater so good it makes you shiver”
- Fresno Bee
"With the most eloquent and suggestive effects, the legendary avant-garde theater troupe Mabou Mines takes us into the troubled mind of Lucia Joyce, the beloved daughter of the writer James Joyce."
-Boston Globe
