James Joyce’s “The Dead,” the closing entry in his collection Dubliners, has inspired numerous adaptations over the years, from plays to a John Huston film to a Broadway musical. In 2016, Irish Repertory Theatre and Dot Dot Productions unveiled a new, immersive production based on the novella, titled The Dead, 1904, featuring a script by the Irish poet Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz. The staging opened in early December at the American Irish Historical Society.
As holiday celebrations seem to kick off earlier and earlier, this Dead has been brought back in time for Thanksgiving this year, with Irish Rep co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly returning to helm it at the same location, a grandly appointed spread on Fifth Avenue. Once again, audience members are greeted as guests of the aging Morkan sisters, Kate and Julia; at a recent preview, my husband and I were warmly welcomed by the latter, played by veteran actress and soprano Mary Beth Peil, after being led up to the second floor by a vivacious maid, Lily, portrayed by an apple-cheeked Jodie Sweeney.
Peil is among several performers who sing, dance and/or play instruments as roughly four dozen others (excluding several crew members) gather to take in the view, which includes handsome period costumes designed by Leon Dobkowski, and sip whiskey, sherry and cider. Dinner will be incorporated into the show, with civilians joining the actors—who remain in character throughout—for a scrumptious meal that includes turkey, beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes and string beans, topped off by bread and butter pudding.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
But the real meat here is in the text, particularly the portion that follows dinner, as Julia and Kate’s adored nephew, Gabriel Conroy—the unofficial guest of honor and central figure in the story—and his wife, Gretta, convene in a room on the third floor. Readers of Joyce’s source material know that it’s in this section, which transpires in a hotel in the short story, where reflection segues into epiphany, and Gabriel in particular is revealed more fully both to us and to himself.
Christopher Innvar, stepping into a role played by the estimable Boyd Gaines eight years ago, brings an easy authority and charisma to Gabriel, while capturing the complacency that, for example, prompts him to ask Lily about her personal life. And in his scene alone with Gretta, played by a tender, radiant Kate Baldwin—one of musical theater’s more elegant leading ladies, who happily gets to sing here as well—Innvar conveys both the unease such men can experience when their perspectives come into question and the curiosity and yearning that distinguishes some from others.
The other cast members prove equally fine, from Úna Clancy, who mitigates Kate’s sternness with wit and warmth, to Karen Killeen, delightfully sunny and gracious as the elderly sisters’ niece, Mary Jane. Aiden Moloney lends welcome mischief as Molly Ivors, an old friend of Gabriel who laments his decision to write a literary column for an “anti-Irish rag”—a Unionist newspaper, that is—and Terry Donnelly is characteristically affecting, and funny, as the proud Mrs. Malins, whose heart clearly aches for her son, Freddy, a hapless alcoholic played here by a droll Gary Troy.
The award-winning violinist Heather Bixler contributes some formidable fiddling as Miss Daly, another guest, and Michael Kuhn sings gorgeously as the visiting tenor Bartell D’Arcy, whose rendition of a folk ballad leaves Gretta haunted, and not just because of its beauty. As for the audience, all are bound to leave with hearts as full as their stomachs.
The Dead, 1904 opened November 26, 2024, at the American Irish Historical Society and runs through January 5, 2025. Tickets and information: irishrep.org
