Performance

27, 29-30 November 2023, 7:30pm

The James Joyce Centre was proud to host the Volta Theatre Company’s production of two short stories from Joyce’s debut work Dubliners on Monday the 27th, Wednesday the 29th, and Thursday the 30th November 2023 at 7:30pm.

Joyce’s collection of short stories provides vivid ‘slices of life’ of early 20th century Dublin. Against the backdrop of a society in paralysis, a pair of Dublin lives are revealed in stark, sometimes brutal, scenes. In Counterparts, an ungainly, bad-tempered law clerk is determined to have a heavy night’s drinking, while in A Little Cloud, a sensitive soul is embittered by a meeting with an old university friend back from London. At once funny and tragic, relatable and disturbing, the stories are populated with an array of colourful characters who remain entirely contemporary, despite the bowler hats and Edwardian collars.

Performed by two actors in the iconic setting of the Joyce Centre’s Georgian drawing room, and featuring period music, this was an exquisite, intimate study of Joyce’s Dublin and its lives of quiet desperation.

Volta is a collaboration between classically-trained actors and musicians, combining theatre with cabaret, jazz and sketch comedy. Its remit is to bring classical theatre to a wide audience. Liam Hourican has worked with Shakespeare’s Globe, the Old Vic, and Second Age Theatre company and has written and performed sketch shows and comedy drama for Channel 4, RTE and the BBC. Jim Roche has starred in Normal People, Harry Wild, Blood 2, Vikings, Damo and Ivor, Killinaskully, The Mario Rosenstock Show, The Tudors, and iCandy. Musicians Feilimidh Nunan and Conor Sheil work with all the principal orchestras in Ireland and have collaborated in a wide variety of musical genres ranging from jazz to traditional music.

The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.