this week in literature

THE LABOR OF LAUNDRY: LYNNE SACHS, LIZZIE OLESKER, AND FRIENDS AT UNNAMEABLE BOOKS

Who: Lizzie Olesker, Lynne Sachs, Silvia Federici, Veraalba Santa
What: Reading and performance
Where: Unnameable Books, 615 Vanderbilt Ave., Brooklyn
When: Monday, September 8, free, 7:00
Why: “This is not a play. It is something else. / Call it a blueprint, a map, a documentation / of something that has already happened / but could happen again — / a rendering in book form of a performance. / Making a mark, words on a page instead of bodies in space. / A book that contains what’s remembered and what could be. / All of it written down and placed here, into this / Hand Book: A Manual,” Lizzie Olesker and Lynne Sachs write in the introduction to Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry (Punctum, June 2025, 425). “We are a playwright and a filmmaker who discovered a shared interest in making work that magnifies quotidian elements of life in the city where we live. We met years ago in Brooklyn while sitting on a bench waiting for our young daughters to finish their music lessons. A conversation began about our lives as mothers and working artists. We couldn’t yet know that those early encounters would lead to a ten-year theater and film collaboration. Now in our sixties, our daughters fully grown, we continue to build an experimental model for making live performance and film, engaging in a dialogue on how art-making can alter our understanding of urban life.”

Olesker, an actor and playwright who has penned such shows as 5 Stages of Grief, A Kind (of) Mother, and Night Shift, and Sachs, a fiction writer and filmmaker who has directed such works as Which Way Is East, Your Day Is My Night, and Film About a Father Who, are the coauthors and codirectors of Hand Book, which Sachs describes as “a collection of writings and images from a performance and film set within a neighborhood laundromat.” In addition to sections by Olesker and Sachs, the illustrated, colorfully designed book (by Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei) features contributions from Margarita Lopez (“A Thousand Pieces a Day”), Jasmine Holloway (“Taking on a Role”), Stephen Vitiello (“Shake, Rattle, and . . .”), Amanda Katz (“Sound of a Machine Door Closing”), Emily Rubin (“Loads of Prose: From the Beginning”), Veraalba Santa (“Score for a Folding Dance”), and others. The foreword, “A New Refusal and a New Struggle,” is by feminist historian, author, and activist Silvia Federici.

On September 8, Olesker, Sachs, Federici, and Santa will be at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn for a reading and performance. There will also be a reading and signing September 13 at noon at Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair
at MoMA PS1 and a performance, reading, and signing September 28 at 2:00 at Torn Page with Tony Torn and Alvin Eng. Sachs continues, “As authors, Lizzie and I along with our many collaborators construct a model for making art about essential work that often goes unrecognized. Turning a page becomes a quasi-cinematic encounter, calling to mind the intimacy of touching other people’s clothes, almost like a second skin, the textural care for things kept close to the body.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

OEDIPUS REIMAGINED: THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS ON LITTLE ISLAND

Revival of The Gospel at Colonus on Little Island tells story of redemption and retribution (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
July 8-26, $10 standing room, $25 seats sold out, 8:30
littleisland.org

One of the grandest theatrical events of the summer is taking place on Little Island, Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s rousing, impassioned adaptation of Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s The Gospel at Colonus, a spirited, spiritual retelling of the Oedipus and Antigone myths.

In 1983, Obie winner and Mabou Mines founding co-artistic director Breuer (Mabou Mines DollHouse, Peter and Wendy) teamed up with composer Telson (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Bantú) to reimagine Robert Fitzgerald’s version of Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus as a Pentecostal revival meeting. The show debuted at BAM’s Next Wave Festival and was mounted on Broadway five years later, with Morgan Freeman as the Messenger; Oedipus was portrayed by Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama.

A tale of witness and testimony, of redemption and retribution, The Gospel at Colonus is a revelation at the Amph, where it begins each night amid the glow of sunset over the Hudson. David Zinn’s set is bathed in red; much of the action occurs in a broken circle in the center surrounding a four-step platform, in front of a yellow foot bridge running between high grass. Stacey Derosier’s lighting, switching from red to green to blue, illuminates Montana Levi Blanco’s loose-fitting purple and sackcloth gray costumes, a combination of Greek togas and Sunday finest. Garth MacAleavey’s sound design allows nature to mingle with the crisp, clear music and dialogue.

Stephanie Berry (On Sugarland, Déjà Vu) is sensational as the Preacher, serving as a kind of narrator and oracle. “Think no longer that you are in command here, / But rather think how, when you were, / You served your own destruction / Welcome, brothers and sisters, / I take as my text this evening the Book of Oedipus,” she announces at the start. “Oedipus! Damned in his birth, in his marriage damned, / Damned in the blood he shed with his own hand! / Oedipus! So pitifully ensnared in the net of his own destiny.”

Stephanie Berry, Davóne Tines, and Frank Senior portray different aspects of Oedipus (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Oedipus — portrayed as a group by blind jazz vocalist Frank Senior, opera bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and Berry — has already blinded himself for having unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, Jocasta, who then hanged herself, and fathered four children with her, two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Antigone (Samantha Howard) and Ismene (Ayana George Jackson). Eteocles is a traitor and Polyneices (Jon-Michael Reese) a usurper, taking opposite sides in an upcoming battle, while Antigone and Ismene seek peace.

“Let every man in mankind’s frailty / Consider his last day; and let none / Presume on his good fortune until he find / Life, at his death, a memory without pain. / Amen,” Evangelist Antigone says.

On his journey, Oedipus encounters Jocasta’s brother, Deacon Creon (Dr. Kevin Bond), the former king, who has been tasked with returning Oedipus to Thebes; a friend (falsetto Serpentwithfeet), who welcomes him to Colonus; Pastor Theseus (Kim Burrell), who vows never to drive him away; and the Balladeer (Brandon Michael Nase), who initially refuses Oedipus and Antigone entry into his church and later questions Testifier Polyneices’s attempt to get back in his father’s good graces.

Kim Burrell rips the roof off the joint several times at Little Island (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Pulitzer finalist Chowdhury (Public Obscenities, Rheology) beautifully flows Breuer’s poetic dialogue (his book earned him a Tony nomination) into Telson’s gospel, blues, and R&B score, featuring Breuer’s potent, emotional lyrics. (Breuer, who died in January 2021 at the age of eighty-three, and Telson, who at seventy-six is still making music, also collaborated on such other projects as Sister Suzie Cinema, The Warrior Ant, and Bagdad Cafe — The Musical.) “Who is this man? What is his name? Where does he come from?” a choragos (Brandon Michael Nase) demands, as if he could be addressing any of us. “Child, I’m so glad you’re here / There’s hope for me / There’s a prophecy . . . I’ve been waiting for a sign / to ease my troubled mind,” Oedipus (Senior and Tines) sings in “Through My Tears.” Oedipus (Tines) later tells Polyneices, “Once you held the power / And when you did you drove me out / Made me a homeless man / You are no son of mine.” But soon Serpentwithfeet is praying, “Let not our friend go down / In grief and weariness / Let some just God spare him / Any more distress” in “Eternal Sleep.”

Burrell tears the roof off the joint — or she would have if the Amph had a roof — in a pair of rip-roaring numbers, “Jubilee (Never Drive You Away)” and “Lift Him Up,” that gets the crowd moving and grooving, hooting and hollering. Among the other notable songs are “Live Where You Can,” “You’d Take Him Away,” and “Evil,” although the finale, “Let the Weeping Cease,” feels unnecessary. Music directors Dionne McClain-Freeney and James Hall lead a terrific band, consisting of McClain-Freeney on piano, Butch Heyward on organ, Bobby Bryan on guitar, Booker King on bass, Jackie Coleman on trumpet, Taja Graves-Parker on trombone, Jason Marshall and Isaiah Johnson on baritone sax, Kevin Walters on alto sax, and Clayton Craddock on drums; the horns perform on high scaffolds at the corners of the stage nearest the river; the superb James Hall Worship & Praise choir includes Pastor Charles, Schanel Crawford, Jaqwanna Crawford, Jacquetta Fayton, Angie Goshea, Robyn McLeod, TJ Reddick, Teddy Reid, Vischon Robinson, Lenny Vancooten, Eugene Marcus Walker, and Darlene Nikki Washington.

In the closing hymn, Serpentwithfeet declares, “There is no end.” That statement is certainly true of the Greek myth of Oedipus; there is no end to the myriad ways this twisted, heart-wrenching can be told, and The Gospel at Colonus on Little Island is among the most inventive, nourishing the soul for ninety glorious minutes.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DON’T STOP THAT PIGEON: CELEBRATING JUNE 14 ON THE HIGH LINE

PIGEON FEST
The High Line
Thirtieth St. & the Spur
Saturday, June 14, free, noon – 8:00
www.thehighline.org

What did you do on Saturday, June 14, 2025? It’s looking to be quite a memorable date.

June 14 is Flag Day, when America pays tribute to the Stars and Stripes. Although it’s not a federal holiday, it is, according to Proclamation 1335, signed in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson, a day “with special patriotic exercises, at which means shall be taken to give significant expression to our thoughtful love of America, our comprehension of the great mission of liberty and justice to which we have devoted ourselves as a people, our pride in the history and our enthusiasm for the political programme of the nation, our determination to make it greater and purer with each generation, and our resolution to demonstrate to all the world its vital union in sentiment and purpose, accepting only those as true compatriots who feel as we do the compulsion of this supreme allegiance.” The flag was approved by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.

June 14 is also unofficially known as Cup Day; on June 14, 1994, the New York Rangers ended their fifty-four-year drought and won the Stanley Cup following a tough seven-game series with the Vancouver Canucks. The Broadway Blueshirts won the finale on goals by Brian Leetch, Adam Graves, and captain Mark Messier; Mike Richter stood tall between the pipes.

On June 14, 1969, German tennis champion Steffi Graf was born.

On June 14, 1963, the Soviets launched the manned spacecraft Vostok 5.

On June 14, 1940, the first train carrying Polish prisoners pulled into Auschwitz.

On June 14, 1928, Che Guevara was born.

On June 14, 1811, Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe was born.

Oh, also, on June 14, 1946, Donald John Trump was born in Queens.

President Trump has decided to honor his birthday, Flag Day, and the 250th anniversary of the US Army on June 14, 2025, by holding a military parade along the National Mall in Washington, DC, consisting of 6,600 soldiers with historical weapons, 50 military aircraft, 150 vehicles, tanks, helicopters, several dozen horses, and 2 mules; the total cost is expected to be $145 million. There will be protests around the country, from the Women’s March’s “Kick Out the Clowns” to “No Kings” in nearly two thousand congressional districts.

If you’re looking for something different, your best bet might just be Pigeon Fest, a party celebrating Iván Argote’s seventeen-foot-high Dinosaur, a giant pigeon sculpture at the High Line Spur at Thirtieth St. There will be artist talks, workshops, carnival games, music, a puppet show, a pageant, a bazaar, a science fair, and more, with Maria Assis Silva, Julia Rooney, Stephanie Costello, Tina Pina (Mother Pigeon), Machine Dazzle, Jameson Fitzpatrick, Lee Ranaldo, the Bird Is the Word Ensemble, and others.

Below is the complete schedule.

Iván Argote’s Dinosaur is centerpiece of High Line celebration (photo by Timothy Schenck)

The Discovery Fair, with Pop-up Pigeons!, Watercolor Workshop with Food Scraps Ink, the Birdsong Project, the Center for Book Arts, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the LES Ecology Center, Lofty Pigeon Books, the Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture (MOUA), Monument Lab, Mother Pigeon, NYC Bird Alliance, Pat McCarthy, and the Wild Bird Fund, Eastern Rail Yards, noon – 5:00

Bird Bazaar, with the Coop Carnival, Pigeon Piñata Party, Alternative Monuments for NYC, Pigeon Fan Club, NYPL Bookmobile Station and Storytime, and Best Plants for Birds on the High Line, Coach Passage at Thirtieth St., noon – 5:00

Zumba: Pigeon Dance Party, led by Maria Assis Silva, noon

Mother Pigeon’s Impeckable Puppet Show, 1:00

Pigeon Impersonation Pageant, 2:00

Panel Discussion: Building Bird-Friendly Cities, with Qiana Mickie, Christian Cooper, and Ethan Dropkin, moderated by Richard Hayden, 3:30

Artist Talk: Iván Argote and Cecilia Alemani, 4:15

Musical Concert, with Jameson Fitzpatrick, a string quartet performance by students from the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard Pre-College Programs, the Bird Is the Word Ensemble organized by Lee Ranaldo, and a special guest headliner, 5:30 – 8:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

WORD ALCHEMY: XU BING AT CHINA INSTITUTE

Who: Xu Bing, Susan L. Beningson, Owen Duffy
What: Talk and book launch
Where: China Institute in America, 100 Washington St.
When: Tuesday, June 10, free ($49.87 with book), 6:30
Why: Last year, Asia Society Texas hosted “Xu Bing: Word Alchemy,” an exhibition of more than fifty of the Chinese artist’s works from throughout his nearly half-century career, including woodcut prints, videos, drawings, and installations. Born in China in 1955 and based in Brooklyn and Beijing, Bing has displayed “Phoenix” at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, “The Living Word” at the Morgan Library, Square Word Calligraphy: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman at the Brooklyn Museum, and The Character of Characters at the Met. On June 10, he will be at China Institute in America — where his work will be featured in the fall exhibit “Metamorphosis: Chinese Memory and Displacement” — to launch the full-color catalog of “Word Alchemy,” joined by exhibition curators Susan L. Beningson and Owen Duffy.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PERSEVERING FOR THE TRUTH: THEATER FESTIVAL HONORS VÁCLAV HAVEL

REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL: PERSEVERANCE
Bohemian National Hall (unless otherwise noted)
321 East 73rd St. between First & Second Aves.
May 26 – June 15, free – $15
rehearsalfortruth.org

Founded in 2017, Rehearsal for Truth is an annual festival that honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident, and president Václav Havel. Presented by the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, This year’s iteration features theater, opera, music, poetry, and more from Czechia, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and other nations.

“Rehearsal for Truth is a rare opportunity to hear artistic voices from Central and Eastern Europe,” festival artistic director Edward Einhorn explained in a statement. “The theme of the 2025 edition is Perseverance. The worldwide turn towards autocracy and war is both current and historically familiar for the artists from this region, and their responses have a deep resonance now for Americans, as we experience our own crises. My hope is that the work presented in the festival can connect our experiences and help us guide us as we all try to persevere through difficult times.”

The centerpiece is the US premiere of Blood, Sweat, and Queers, a seventy-five-minute piece about intersex Czech track star Zdenek Koubek (1913–86) and fascism, coproduced by Einhorn’s Untitled Theater Company No. 61. Other highlights include Belarus Free Theatre’s King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, Alexander Manuiloff’s interactive The Decision, and an evening of music and poetry with Marketa Foukalova, Jan Zábrana, and Martin Brunner.

Havel (1936–2011) wrote such plays as The Garden Party and The Memorandum and such books as Living in Truth and Toward a Civil Society; he also wrote and directed the 2011 film Leaving. In a 1968 letter to Alexander Dubček, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Havel explained, “Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance,” words to live by in today’s international maelstrom.

Tickets for most events are free (with a suggested donation of $10-$15) and require advance RSVP. Below is the full schedule.

Hura Collective’s Erben: Vlasy is part of Rehearsal for Truth festival honoring Václav Havel

Monday, May 26
through
Sunday, June 15
Blood, Sweat, and Queers, coproduced by Untitled Theater Company No. 61, by Tomas Dianiška, translated by Edward Einhorn and Katarina Vizina, directed by Edward Einhorn, starring Craig Anderson, Herschel Blatt, Jean Marie Keevins, Alyssa Simon, Katarina Vizina, and Hennessy Winkler, followed by a talk with Chris Harwood on May 26 and Michael Waters on May 30, $10-$20

Tuesday, May 27
Marketa Foukalova, featuring vocalist Markéta Foukalová, with poems by Jan Zábrana and music by Martin Brunner, followed by a discussion with Chris Harwood, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Thursday, May 29
The Decision, interactive theater created by Alexander Manuiloff, directed by Irina Kruzhilina, Bohemian National Hall, followed by a discussion with the author, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Sunday, June 1
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, by Belarus Free Theatre, from the book by Uladzimir Karatkievich, adapted by Nicolai Khalezin, with music by Olga Podgaiskaya, directed by Natalia Kaliada, free ($10 suggested donation), 2:00

Connection, solo livestream from Salzburg, created and performed by Maryna Yakubovich, followed by a discussion and reception, free ($15 suggested donation), 5:00 – 9:30

Wednesday, June 4
The Pit, written by Matei Visneic, directed by Ana Margineanu, starring Owen Campbell, Vas Eli, and Perri Yaniv, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Friday, June 6
Staged Reading: Show Trial, about Czech politician and resistance leader Milada Horáková, written by Laura Zlatos, directed by Tom Costello, followed by a discussion with the author, $15, 7:00

Saturday, June 7
Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble, created by Piotr Sikora, followed by a reception with the artist, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Sunday, June 8
Erben: Vlasy, by Hura Collective, with direction, set, puppets, and music by Hza Bažant, starring Hza Bažant and Leona Bažant Telínová, followed by a demonstration of puppetry techniques and history, free ($15 suggested donation), 5:00 & 7:00

Stella Abel will perform Psyche June 12 & 13, in English then Hungarian

Wednesday, June 11
The Amateurs, written by Lenka Garajová, directed by Šimon Ferstl, starring Šimon Ferstl, Jakub Jablonský, Lenka Libjaková, Martin ISO Krajčír, Kriss Krimm, and Tomáš Pokorný, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Thursday, June 12, in English, 7:00 & 9:00
and
Friday, June 13, in Hungarian, 7:00
Psyché: Writings of an Erstwhile Poetess, from poems by Sándor Weöres, translated by David Cseh, directed by Mark Tarnoki, performed by Stella Abel, the Hungarian House, 213 East 82nd St., free (donations encouraged)

Friday, June 13
Kafka’s Ape, adapted by Phala Ookeditse, performed by Tony Miyambo, Bohemian National Hall, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING: FREE SUMMER NYC THEATER 2025

The free summer theater season kicked off this month with Molière in the Park’s The Imaginary Invalid (photo by Russ Rowland)

The Public Theater is back presenting Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte after a yearlong revitalization, but there are plenty more places to catch the Bard and others for free as well, listed below. Note that some productions strongly suggest advance RSVP and involve moving to multiple locations during the performance.

Through May 25
Molière in the Park: Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid, starring Tony nominee Sahr Ngaujah, the LeFrak Center at Lakeside, Prospect Park, free with RSVP, 3:00 or 7:30

Thursday, May 29
through
Sunday, June 22
Hudson Classical Theater Company: Julius Caesar, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, West Eighty-Ninth St. & Riverside Dr., Riverside Park, 6:30

Thursday, May 29
through
Sunday, June 29
The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit: Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Rebecca Martínez, with music and lyrics by Julián Mesri, Astor Plaza (May 29-31), the New York Public Library & Bryant Park (June 3-8), Wolfe’s Pond Park (June 11), J. Hood Wright Park (June 12-14), the Cathedral Church of St. John The Divine (June 15), Sunset Park (June 17-18), A.R.R.O.W. Field House (June 20), Queens Night Market (June 21), Roy Wilkins Park (June 22), Maria Hernandez Park (June 25), St. Mary’s Park (June 26), Travers Park (June 27), the Peninsula in Prospect Park (June 28-29)

Saturday, May 31
Barefoot Shakespeare Company: Unrehearsed! The Comedy of Errors, Summit Rock, Central Park, 5:30

Tuesday, June 3
through
Sunday, July 6
NY Classical: All’s Well That Ends Well, Central Park (June 3-22), Carl Schurz Park (June 24-29), Battery Park (July 1-6), free with RSVP, 7:00

Wednesday, June 4
through
Sunday, June 29
Smith Street Stage: Shakespeare in Carroll Park: Henry V, Carroll Park

Thursday, June 12
through
Sunday, June 22
Shakespeare Downtown: Tennessee Williams’s Tiger Tail, Castle Clinton, Battery Park, 6:30

Saturday, June 21
through
Sunday, July 20
Boomerang Theatre Company: Richard II, Central Park West & Sixty-Ninth St., Central Park, $1.70, 2:00

Thursday, June 26
through
Sunday, July 20
Hudson Classical Theater Company: Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, West Eighty-Ninth St. & Riverside Dr., Riverside Park, 6:30

Saturday, July 5
through
Sunday, July 27
The Classical Theatre of Harlem: Memnon, by Will Power, starring Eric Berryman, Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park

Thursday, July 17
through
Saturday, August 2
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by the Drilling Company, Lower East Side Prep parking lot, 145 Stanton St. (entrance on Rivington between Norfolk & Suffolk)

Thursday, July 24
through
Sunday, August 17
Hudson Classical Theater Company: Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, West Eighty-Ninth St. & Riverside Dr., Riverside Park, 6:30

Tuesday, August 5
through
Saturday, August 23
Hip to Hip Theater: Hamlet and The Tempest, preceded by children’s workshop, nine locations

Thursday, August 7
through
Sunday, September 14
Shakespeare in the Park: Twelfth Night, starring Lupita Nyong’o, Sandra Oh, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Peter Dinklage, Khris Davis, Junior Nyong’o, Moses Sumney, b, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, 8:00

Saturday, August 23
Barefoot Shakespeare Company: Unrehearsed! The Comedy of Errors, Summit Rock, Central Park, 4:00

Friday, August 29
through
Tuesday, September 2
Pericles: A Public Works Concert Experience, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, music and lyrics by Troy Anthony, directed by Carl Cofield

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TALES OF BRAVE ULYSSES: CENSORSHIP ON TRIAL AT THE IRISH ARTS CENTER

The March of Time reenacts a critical censorship trial in The United States vs. Ulysses (photo by Nir Arieli)

THE UNITED STATES VS ULYSSES
Irish Arts Center
726 Eleventh Ave. between Fifty-First & Fifty-Second Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 1, $26-$76
irishartscenter.org

James Joyce’s earth-shaking novel, Ulysses, used a unique stream-of-consciousness method to tell the Odyssey-inspired story of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin. Colin Murphy attempts to incorporate a similar technique in the North American premiere of Colin Murphy’s The United States vs. Ulysses, with decidedly mixed results.

Published in 1922, Ulysses was first serialized in 1918–20 and banned in the United States under the Comstock Act, which deemed it obscene. A dozen years later, Random House cofounder Bennett Cerf arranged with ACLU attorney Morris Ernst to have a copy of the book mailed to the publisher in New York, provoking its seizure at the border, which enabled them to mount a challenge to the ban. Their stunt led to United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, a test case in which they claimed freedom of speech and expression; the trial judge was John Munro Woolsey, with Sam Coleman representing the government. Joyce himself was not part of the case.

Murphy and director Conall Morrison center the play around a December 8, 1933, March of Time radio broadcast re-creating the trial as breaking news. The show has three interweaving sections, switching between the radio play, in which the performers are at a table, using sound effects and reading the dialogue; the trial itself; and a chapter of the book brought to life. Unfortunately, it leads to a choppy narrative flow and confusion about who is who at numerous points.

Mark Lambert is actor Scott from The March of Time, lawyer Ernst, and J. J. O’Molloy from Ulysses; Ross Gaynor is Art / Cerf, Coleman, and minister Alexander J. Dowie / Blazes Boylan; Ali White is Arlene / editor and publisher Margaret Anderson and Margaret Ernst / the voice of Ulysses; Morgan C Jones is Ray / Woolsey, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce / the judge; Clare Barrett is Charme / publisher Jane Heap and Nora Barnacle, Joyce’s wife / Molly Bloom, Gerty MacDowell, and Bella Cohen; and Jonathan White is the director and Leopold Bloom.

Liam Doona’s set features various chairs and tables that are moved around to indicate whether we are in the recording studio, the courtroom, or a scene from the novel; small changes in Catherine Fay’s costumes and John Comiskey’s lighting try to distinguish the characters, with limited success.

Historical drama includes a dream sequence that goes inside James Joyce’s Ulysses (photo by Nir Arieli)

One of the more intriguing scenes occurs when Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, the publishers of The Little Review, the literary magazine that was serializing the novel, talk about censorship with Ezra Pound, getting into how absurd it all is.

Heap: This is the most beautiful thing we’ll ever have.
Anderson: It is a prose masterpiece. I glory in it!
Heap: We’ll print it if it’s the last effort of our lives.
Pound: We’ll be damn well suppressed again if we print Joyce’s text as it stands!
Anderson: We are committed to the free speech of our authors.
Pound: If our authors would speak just a little less freely, the Post Office might not feel so free to seize the damn magazine and burn it.
Heap: Mr. Joyce’s words are sacrosanct.
Pound: Joyce’s words are just as damn well flammable as any other words. What use is his genius on a bonfire?
Anderson: This obscenity law is unjust, Mr. Pound — we should campaign against it.
Pound: The law is grotesque, barbarous, ridiculous, risible, idiotic, monstrous, pestilent — but it could shut us down.
Voice of Time: So — without consulting Mr. Joyce – they agree among themselves to remove some of the phrases most likely to alarm the censors . . .
Anderson: Here’s one: “He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels.”
Pound: God, the man is revolting.
Heap: “Loosening in his stomach”?
Anderson: How about his “belly”?
Heap: “Loosening in his belly” sounds silly.
Pound: We could just cut the mention of “bowels” — “He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening.”
Heap: That should do. What’s next?
Pound: Try this: “Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken (coughs) of the world.”
Anderson: “The grey sunken belly of the world”?
Pound: Good!
Anderson: Next?

Rebecca West and Virginia Woolf disagree on the merits of Ulysses. English author Arnold Bennett declares, “Ulysses is more indecent, obscene, scatological, and licentious than the majority of professedly pornographical books . . . and I have read most of them.” Morris Ernst drops some F-bombs. Molly cries out “Yes!” over and over again like she’s having an orgasm every time the court considers allowing an excerpt from the “Nighttown” section of Ulysses to be read aloud. Some of those moments are funny; others feel out of place.

While there was a March of Time episode dedicated to the trial, no documentation has survived, so Murphy pieced it together using the court transcript, newspaper and magazine articles, and such sources as Declan Dunne’s Set at Random, but the varying elements never connect, ending up with a scattershot recounting that makes it hard for the audience to distinguish fictional exchanges from those based on the historical record.

The show is, sadly, still relevant today, as schools and stores ban so many books from their shelves. Perhaps the best reason to see The United States vs. Ulysses is that it will make you pick up that dusty copy of Ulysses you’ve been promising yourself for decades that you would finally read.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]