BLOOMSDAY IN MELBOURNE
2022 ULYSSES AT 100
THREE MAJOR EVENTS TO CELEBRATE A MASTERPIECE:
Bloomsday's first feature film, Love's Bitter Mystery
A new play - Yes I will Yes! (a free adaptation of Penelope)
A Concert - Love's Old Sweet Songs, celebrating the Joyce of Music
Two dinners and three intensive courses
LOVE'S BITTER MYSTERY
A NEW IMMERSIVE BIO-PIC ON THE YEAR THAT MADE JAMES JOYCE
THE YEAR THAT MADE JAMES JOYCE - 1903-4
This neogothic feature film focuses on how the young James Joyce used (and changed) episodes from his own life in Ulysses. His mother lies dying and Jim obstinately clings to his principles; pondering the nature of love, months later he meets the woman who is prepared to suffer his obsessions and overlook his idiosyncrasies..
Photographer for Love's Bitter Mystery: Chelsea Neate
WHAT THE REVIEWERS THOUGHT
Patricia di Risio in Stage Whispers
Unsolited comments from Patrons
STREAM OR BUY FILM
The film is available for viewing or buying at Scene. Bloomsday's creative team appreciates your support.
BLOOMSDAY 22
The MC Showroom, Prahran, 15-25 June
A free adaptation of the Penelope episode devised by Frances Devlin-Glass, Roz Hames and Philip Harvey, this play dramatised the dialogue in Molly's head between her Gibraltan self of 1886, her bored housewife of Dublin 1904, and invented three scenarios for her in 1922, based on hints in Ulysses.
THE CREATIVE TEAM
MOLLY BLOOM IN CONVERSATION WITH HERSELF....
YES I WILL YES!
Molly Bloom – earthy, vulgar, feisty – was reinvented for the centenary of Ulysses. Forced to choose between a rich adulterer with a vicious glint in his eye and an all-too-familiar husband in Leopold Bloom, Molly reveals herself in yes I will Yes! as the celebrated toast of Gibraltar, Dublin and the world. This première of a riotously funny and shockingly frank adaptation of the (in)famous final chapter of Ulysses.
She is emphatically not bedsteadfast. The Bloomsday in Melbourne scripting team augmented Joyce's Molly by inventing for her three future scenarios: one singing for the troops in the Riff War of 1922; another in which she becomes a silent movie star; and the third in which she makes a farewell concert in Australia with both Blazes and Poldy.
View the programme and find out about our talented creatives.
Photography by Jody Jane Stitt and Mark Harper
WHAT THE REVIEWERS THOUGHT
THE BLOOMSDAY SEMINAR
Professor Kuch and Associate Professor Frances Devlin-Glass gave papers, and Kevin Molloy chaired.
The Concert
Love's Old Sweet Songs
- From the James Joyce Song-book
8 October 2022 at the Hawthorn Arts Centre, Hawthorn, Victoria
LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONGS' DIRECTORS
Mary O'Driscoll as Musical Director
Tref Gare as the Theatre Director and Master of Ceremonies (in three different incarnations)
Go to our digital flip-book Programme for details of all our performers:
Carly Wilding (Harpist and Vocalist)
Merryn Hughes (Operatic Soprano, playing Molly)
Torsten Skrokirch (Tenor, playing James Joyce and Blazes Boylan)
Chris Broadstock (as Bloom)
The Tatty Tenors: Ralph Devlin, Jimmy Aherne (as Simon Dedalus), Ron Jackson, and Ted Chapman on piano
THE PROGRAMME - for all the bright particular stars of this musical event
Photography by Jody Jane Stitt and Mark Harper
TREF GARE, THEATRE DIRECTOR AND ACTOR
Tref's style of physical comedy was manifest in his different roles as Luigi Denza, adjudicator of the Feis Ceoil of 1904, and as the Master of Vaudeville in Act 3, and as Master of Ceremonies. As well, he fine-tuned the theatricals as Director.
CHRIS BROADSTOCK AS LEOPOLD BLOOM
...looking in from the the sidelines of Poldy's life. He did, however, enjoy a 'Sliding Doors' moment with Molly singing their signature tune, Love's Old Sweet Song, when something of the old flame flickered momentarily. And he didn't have to wear funereal black as he'd done in Yes I will Yes!
MORE EVENTS IN 2022
&
WHAT'S COMING UP IN 2023
Two Fabulous Dinners with the Joyce community, the first with the Irish Ambassador Tim Mawr, at Inès Restaurant on Chapel St, Prahran, on Bloomsday 16 June 2022
The second, at the Hawthorn Hotel on Bridge Road, with the Tatty Tenors and cast, on 8 October 2022
And let's not forget three intensive courses at Kathleen Syme Library, two Introductions to James Joyce and one on the Penelope Episode as a taster for Yes I will Yes! for Bloomsday.
What's to come in 2023:
watch out for Exiles, Joyce's only play (what's taken us so long?), in 2023 at fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, 15-25 June 2023.
And more intensive courses, of course.
BLOOMSDAY THANKS ITS 2022 SUPPORTERS
Pre-eminently, the Embassy of Ireland, Canberra and the Irish Government
And also,
Hawthorn Arts Centre and the Rotary Club of Balwyn
The Celtic Club Melbourne
Buck Mulligans, Nortrhcote
and our superb Patrons
