Elevator Repair Service will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Ulysses at Symphony Space on June 16
Who: Elevator Repair Service
What: Bloomsday on Broadway
Where: Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 2537 Broadway at Ninety-Fifth St.
When: Thursday, June 16, $17-$28, 8:00
Why: Last year, walking on the Lower East Side, I bumped into Scott Shepherd, longtime member of Elevator Repair Service (ERS), which has been presenting unique, experimental theatrical works since 1991. I asked him what he was up to and he said, “Just wait to see what we’re doing for Bloomsday at Symphony Space.” That day has arrived. On June 16, in honor of the centennial of the publication of James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses, ERS will be doing something different at Symphony Space, which has been celebrating the novel for decades by having all-star marathon lineups reading the book on June 16, the day in 1904 in which the story takes place.
Helmed by ERS artistic director John Collins, the two-hour presentation features ERS ensemble members Shepherd, Dee Beasnael, Kate Benson, Maggie Hoffman, Vin Knight, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, and Stephanie Weeks performing excerpts from each of the book’s eighteen episodes, bringing the tale to life as only ERS can. ERS has previously brought its unpredictable style to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (the eight-hour Gatz), William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (The Select). The set design is by dots, with costumes by Enver Chakartash, lighting by Mark Barton, sound by Ben Williams, and props by Patricia Marjorie. It all begins with “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” For more on the centenary of the novel, be sure to head over to the Morgan Library to see the new exhibit “One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s Ulysses.”