BLOOMSDAY IN MELBOURNE
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SAMUEL BECKETT AND
THE RAINBOW GIRL
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GENIUS, LOVE, MADNESS, VIOLENCE
IN 1920S PARIS
13-23 JUNE 2024
AND ON SUNDAY 16TH JUNE, OUR ANNUAL BLOOMSDAY LUNCH AND JOYCEAN SEMINAR.
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AN ORIGINAL PLAY BY STEVE CAREY,
DIRECTED BY CARL WHITESIDE
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It's late 1920s Paris and Lucia, muse and only daughter of notorious banned novelist James Joyce, is poised to succeed as a daringly original dancer. Into this dysfunctional artistic household arrives alluring young Dubliner Samuel Beckett – enigmatic, hypereducated, a writer seeking his own literary voice. He finds himself drawn into the older writer’s web… and at the same time becomes the reluctant subject of Lucia’s increasingly obsessive amorous gaze. A series of romantic misunderstandings, at first comic but increasingly tragic, strip Lucia of her nascent career and, her family and love interest both lost to her, she spirals into madness.
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Playwright Steve Carey has written about the origins and development of Samuel Beckett and the Rainbow Girl for Tinteán magazine.
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Proudly supported in 2024 by the Celtic Club @ Wild Geese
Digital Programme
Click on link below; or click here to access Programme as a PDF, or right-click to download.
HOW WAS SAMUEL BECKETT AND THE RAINBOW GIRL RECEIVED?
'There are some great performances here. Tref Gare gives us a James Joyce as a preening, extravagant, self-styled ‘genius’....As Lucia, the daughter, Mary Agnes O’Loughlin shows enormous talent...'
How does a young woman truly express herself in a conventional and patriarchal world? Sensuality and jazz/flapper sentiments shine through O’Loughlin’s performance as the young woman rebels against familial and societal conventions.
'This year’s Joyce must be simultaneously the literary lion in his den, the wordsmith gone half-crazy with the materials of his trade, and yet the responsible father who somehow understands his daughter, and her difficulties, in ways no one else can. '
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To be an artist is to accommodate yourself to a degree of failure. Even James Joyce had failure like greatness thrust upon him. For Samuel Beckett, however, failure became his driving force, his default position
The work has intellectual rigour, in the form of readings from James Joyce and Beckett, as well as the occasional lightness of touch. The latter comes courtesy of some of the more rousing scenes, including Joyce’s celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the release of Ulysses.
'The most interesting scenes are Nora’s monologues, as they move from comedic to more emotional as the play progresses, beautifully portrayed by Carissa McPherson.'
BLOOMSDAY SEMINAR AND LUNCH
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SPEAKERS
STEVE CAREY , Playwright and producer
‘Fading out… you can’t see her now’ (Finnegans Wake p226): Reimagining Lucia
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Lucia Joyce has come to represent something, maybe many things, though quite what is hard to articulate, not least because her own voice is so notably lost to us. The themes of Bloomsday in Melbourne’s new play for 2024, Samuel Beckett and the Rainbow Girl, include memory, fame and the toll it takes, art as self-therapy, madness and perhaps above all the silencing of voices. Playwright Steve Carey talks about Joyce, his wife Nora and his children Lucia and Georgio; the young Samuel Beckett;; and the experience of seeing a script transformed by a director, a cast and a creative team.
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ERIN M. McCUSKEY, film artist
'Dancing out of Time'
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Her nephew decimated Lucia Joyce’s archive to protect her famous father's legacy. All that remains of her creative dancing life are the photographs by Berenice Abbott and some tantalising reviews of her prowess. It was Paris, between the wars. The Roaring 20s. Much of the culture, fashion, and self-expression were considered scandalous. Hemlines were up and stockings were down. Modernism erupted as a flame in the form of women wildly dancing. They had created the new. Young women in particular embraced the change with its promise of freedom. However, freedom was not to be Lucia’s destiny. Like many difficult women of the time, there was a much simpler solution.
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Chair: Frances Devlin-Glass
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