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Synopsis Back in Dublin after nine years abroad, Richard and Bertha have to confront two other people who love them, and ask themselves questions about guilt and responsibility. Will infidelity hold them together? Exiles is a startlingly modern picture of marriage, based in part on Joyce's own relationship with Nora Barnacle. His only play, it was written in 1914 during his own self-imposed exile from Ireland, between Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses.
Exiles, the only stage play by Irish novelist James Joyce, was revived at the National’s Cottesloe Theatre last night (2 August 2006, previews from 26 July), for a repertory run to 26 October 2006 (See News, 19 Apr 2006). James Macdonald’s production is the first in 30 years.
In 1914, during his long self-imposed exile from his native Ireland, Joyce wrote Exiles, between his classic novels Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. It’s based in part on the author’s own relationship with his common-law wife Nora Barnacle. Back in Dublin after nine years abroad, Richard and Bertha have to confront two other people who love them and ask themselves questions about guilt and responsibility. Will infidelity hold them together?
Overnight critics commented on how modern the play’s themes are, dealing with infidelity and immorality in a way which was quite shocking for audiences at the time it was written. They were impressed with the controlled performances of the cast and admired Hildegard Bechtler’s evocative design.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com – James Macdonald’s tightly wound revival in the National’s Cottesloe goes a long way towards explaining Harold Pinter’s interest in the play, as well as honouring its inherent value…. The production has a pregnancy of mood that is hypnotically sustained by the silhouetting of the actors in Peter Mumford’s lighting and the opalescent transparency of Hildegard Bechtler’s design…. Adrian Dunbar is a languid sadist of a seducer, always prepared to justify his advances. But the play really works because Dervla Kirwan suggests that Bertha is totally in thrall to her own impulses…. All the performances, in fact, illuminate a play that can seem dense and impenetrable on the page but which reveals not only the secrets of the human heart but also the peculiar agonies of Joyce’s marriage. This is an important, as well as fascinating, revival.”
Rhoda Koenig in the Independent - “Joyce's only play has now been revived by James Macdonald in a production that is a poem and a revelation. For three hours, we experience that rarest quality on the contemporary stage - stillness - and it never loses its grip. In the course of a day and an evening and the morning after, two men, or a man and a woman talk, sit and talk about love, the past, and the night. That is all, and that is everything…. As Richard and Bertha, Peter McDonald and Dervla Kirwan could not be better. As for Adrian Dunbar, it is pitiful and touching to see him change from the sardonic, elaborately casual dandy who pays compliments with his legs crossed to the elemental man who pelts down the stairs at his lover's cry. Marcella Plunkett as the educated woman who makes Bertha jealous and Aine ni Mhuiri as an old servant complete this picture of perfection.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian - “James Macdonald's fine revival in the Cottesloe leaves one puzzled as to the neglect of a work which seems a missing link between Ibsen and modern drama…. Joyce's play is a cat-and-mouse sexual game quarried from his own life…. the moral freedom proves agonising to all; and, to the last, we are never exactly sure whether Bertha and Robert slept together…. One is shocked by the play's modernity. Wilde famously said ‘in married life three's company, two's none’; but Joyce takes that further by suggesting modern marriages are sustained only by a third party. Rowan's inquisitiveness about his wife's dalliance acquires an extraordinary mixture of prurience and pain. Even the unresolved ending reminds us that Joyce anticipated Pirandello, Beckett and Pinter in allowing spectators the dignity of choice…. Some may dismiss this as a novelist's play; to me it emerges as a neglected landmark of modern theatre that explores the byzantine complexities of marriage with the honesty of genius.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard - “Exiles’ psychologically nuanced portrait of a marriage in emotional distress manifests a startling modernity. Its ideas about sexual freedom and experiment within a traditionally closed marital framework remind us that some Edwardians were free radicals…. Peter McDonald's enthralling performance of becalmed, brooding introversion ensures the husband keeps his inscrutability intact…. MacDonald's production sacrifices Exiles' governing mood of perverse and agonised sexual confusion, which McDonald, Miss Plunkett and Dervla Kirwan's troubled Bertha powerfully transmit, in favour of Dunbar's misguided, winsome perkiness. James Joyce is accordingly done down.”
The only play James Joyce wrote – apart from an early lost piece - was Exiles, completed in 1915, first produced in Munich in 1919 and in London in 1926. Harold Pinter rescued it from obscurity in a production at the Mermaid Theatre (later at the Aldwych) in 1970. James Macdonald’s tightly wound revival in the National’s Cottesloe goes a long way towards explaining Pinter’s interest in the play, as well as honouring its inherent value.
Partly an autobiographical account of Joyce’s relationship with his wife Nora Barnacle, the common-law marriage of Richard Rowan, a writer, and Bertha, some kind of Irish man magnet, is tested when they return to Dublin after an absence of nine years. Richard’s best friend Robert Hand, a journalist, propositions Bertha, having arranged for Richard to be elsewhere during their tryst. But Bertha has told Richard about her attraction to his friend, and he turns up too. This is a battle of two men’s souls, says Robert: “of your soul against the spectre of fidelity, of mine against the spectre of friendship.”
What little I remember of Pinter’s production hangs around John Wood’s febrile, hawkish Richard, but Peter McDonald presents an entirely different reading, one of open resignation, almost saintly indifference to the hierarchy of relationships. In his crumpled linen suit, he is a very picture of sympathetic emotional lassitude, and this completely wrong-foots Adrian Dunbar’s superb, sexually insidious Robert in their big scenes together.
It has been suggested that while the men’s battle is centred on Bertha, it's also rooted in a homoerotic idea of possessing the same woman and therefore growing closer together. Everyone knows how stuck on Ibsen Joyce was at this point in his career; but the insistence on truth, the unravelling of an obsession, is less powerful here than such shimmering ambiguities.
The production has a pregnancy of mood that is hypnotically sustained by the silhouetting of the actors in Peter Mumford’s lighting and the opalescent transparency of Hildegard Bechtler’s design. Richard and Bertha’s son Archie (Thomas Grant) seems delightfully immune to the triangular shenanigans, while Marcella Plunkett as Richard’s cousin Beatrice plays a first scene that colours the entire evening; Richard is not as pure and devoted as he would like to be. By the end, he is suffering from “a wound of doubt”.
Adrian Dunbar is a languid sadist of a seducer, always prepared to justify his advances. But the play really works because Dervla Kirwan suggests that Bertha is totally in thrall to her own impulses and that she cannot decide what to do until she fully understands them. All the performances, in fact, illuminate a play that can seem dense and impenetrable on the page but which reveals not only the secrets of the human heart but also the peculiar agonies of Joyce’s marriage. This is an important, as well as fascinating, revival.
If I give could zero stars, I would! I've never been so bored at the theatre in all my life. This is turgid self-indulgent nonsense and whilst I wouldn't want to take anything away from the actors, I nevertheless want to spare my decent theatregoing peers a night of utter boredom. - 82.43.198.16)
13 Oct 06
Evita was the show that first introduced me to musical theatre (well the song Don’t Cry For Me Argentina at least). I saw a good touring production in 1995 only spoilt by Marti Webb squawking her way through the score. I was really looking forward to this revival having read great things about it but unfortunately it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Elena Roger, as Eva Peron, was a great actress and terrific dancer but her voice, despite perfect diction, was quite rough around the edges at times and I’m not convinced she’s really leading lady material. Matt Rawle sang superbly but never really shone that much as Che – he didn’t stand out from the crowd. Philip Quast was off and his understudy was adequate but I never felt that Peron was a very meaty role anyway. The highlights of the show for me were Buenos Aires, High Flying Adored, Rainbow High, You Must Love Me, The Money Kept Rolling In and the finale. What let this show down for me was the small ensemble (crowd scenes weren’t big enough). The orchestrations didn’t come to life in the way I was expecting and I never really sensed that Latin American feel. The set wasn’t very impressive and the lighting was too dark a lot of the time. Maybe because I know and love the score so well there were no surprises and even though I quite enjoyed the show it never really came alive for me or lived up to all the hype. I’m disappointed that I didn’t enjoy Evita as much as I had hoped and wanted to. - 62.254.64.17)
25 Sep 06
Good acting, great design and excellent lighting. Unfortunately, this play is a turgid piece of self-indulgent confession. Joyce could write this knowing it would not be produced in its time (though, in my view, its quality as a piece of writing would be enough reason not to produce it!). Now you know why it has not be revived for 30+ years. - 86.134.84.176)
01 Sep 06
One of the reasons why novellists rarely write good plays is demonstrated by Joyce's Exiles. Nearly three hours of non-coloquial dialogue with little or no action is very heavy going.
However, the series of triangles between characters is fascinating: Robert & Bertha; Richard & Bertha; Robert & Richard, plus the elusive Beatrice. This also benefits from an effective, if spare, set and atmospheric lighting.
Marcella Plunkett is a delight as the beautiful but tragic Beatrice and Dervla Kirwan is electrifying as Bertha, seemingly willing to be used as a metaphor for Robert and Richard's homo-erotic longings. However she seems far too intelligent to match the description of her character. Unfortuntely Peter McDonald gives a performance of such utter charmelessness that it is impossible to understand why Robert would inspire devotion in such a passionate character as Bertha.
Hard work but just about worth the effort. - 62.6.139.13)
24 Aug 06
The play is too long by at least half an hour. Joyce continues to ram home the point long after it has become clear, especially in the second act duologue between Hand and Rowan. This excessive length saps the audience's concentration on what is essentially a discursive piece. Dunbar and McDonald as the two male leads seem to play against each other, and their totally different styles (McDonald all self-controlled clarity, Dunbar all sleazy charm) do not allow either of them to fully convince. The production is redeemed by the performance of Dervla Kirwan as the object of the men's rivalry, although in the evening I saw the play, she seemed to be having great trouble either with her contact lenses or with the stage lights shining in her eyes. Worth seeing - but only once. - 213.122.27.45)
23 Aug 06
EXILES is both absorbing and engaging and rather complex with a husband determined to give his wife - or rather the woman he has been living with for nine years - full sexual freedom. There is constant tension and Ibsen's influence is evident - also touches of Pinter and even Albee. The three hours pass quickly and the performances are beautifully underplayed in an elegant and clear production. - 194.106.62.200)
14 Aug 06
Agree completely with the last review. It is a quite dreadful play. Acting OK. - 82.35.89.16)
13 Aug 06
I don't dislike James Joyce. I really don't, but there is a reason this play is hardly ever performed. It is appalling. James Joyce is such a sacred cow for the critics that Rhoeda whatsit from the Indy has given it 5 and Michael Billington of the Grauniad has given it 4 for no other reason than that they both haven't got over being sixth form show offs who like to pretend they 'get' what the rest of us won't. A stinker from first to last. - 217.196.231.33)
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