FILMED THEATRE
Filmed immersive theatre about James Joyce
Online from 10 June 2022
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***
Get tics to view film online here: https://www.the-scene.net/lovesbittermystery-watch
www.bloomsdayinmelbourne.org.au
This review published only on this blog. KH
When a planned stage production cancels because. of the pandemic, what does a canny producer do? Put it on screen, of course!
Love’s Bitter Mystery, Steve Carey’s play about the young James Joyce (Tobias Miller) at the beginning of his career as a writer, was planned to be an immersive live production in 2020 but the Pandemic changed that and, six days before the opening, the company decided to transform it into a film.
Like the stage version, the 75 minute film focuses on the period of 1903-1904, a watershed year in young Jim’s (AKA James) life and explores his relationships with the two women he loved: his mother (Rebecca Morton) and Nora Barnacle (Jacqueline Whiting) who became his muse and eventually, his wife. June 16, 1904, the date Joyce met Nora on the streets of Dublin, now marks Bloomsday, the event that celebrates Joyce’s acclaimed book, Ullysses.
Carey’s script depicts episodes from Joyce’s life and merges text from Ulysses to show how the ‘artist as a young man’ used his own life in his novel.
An on-screen guide (May Jasper) acts as narrator, but it is the camera that leads the viewer in a voyeuristic tour of the rooms and corridors of the stately but eerie mansion, Villa Alba in Kew, where we witness moments from Joyce’s life.
We quail at the fire and brimstone of the Irish Catholic priest (Hayden Splitt) who terrorises young Jim when he is a timid, bespectacled and fearful schoolboy. But it is Jim’s pious mother who is dying with cancer, who fills the screen with her fears for Jim’s soul because he has lost his religious faith.
The narrative includes episodes in Paris where Jim tried to escape Ireland’s parochialism and its religious and family constraints, but most of the story takes place in Dublin with scenes at in his mother’s death bed, in the street or indoors with Nora, and even a scene in a bordello in Dublin’s red-light district.
The dialogue is peppered with extracts from Joyce’s novels and with Irish folk songs that provide colour and cultural context for the story. The performances are earnest and committed and demonstrate an understanding of Joyce’s life and writing, but the acting is uneven and sometimes awkward, while the dialogue is rather too informational, often feeling like the text from the novels is crow-barred into the script.
Despite its shortcomings, Love’s Bitter Mystery will delight those Joyce aficionados with its bird’s eye view of one year in his life and the extracts from his novels.
By Kate Herbert
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| Tobias Miller, Caleb Whittaker |
FILM CREDITS
Screenplay - Steve Carey & Carly Wilding
Director - Carly Wilding
Executive Producers - Steve Carey, Frances Devlin-Glass & Jak Scanlon
Producers - Jak Scanlon, Frances Devlin-Glass, Steve Carey, Matthew Connell
& Carly Wilding
James Joyce - Tobias Miller
Nora - Jacqueline Whiting
Moses The Guide - May Jasper
Mother - Rebecca Morton
Cranly/Mulligan - Caleb Whittaker
Priest/Uncle/Carr -
Zoe - Aubrey Flood
Director of Photography - Jak Scanlon
1st Camera Assistant - Chelsea Neate
2nd Camera Assistant/Gaffer - Bree Horwood
Assistant - Adam Juric
Editor & Colourist - Jak Scanlon
Audio Engineer & Sound Designer - Tom Kunz
Composer - Kylie Morrigan
Additional Composition Elements - Mal Webb & Caleb Whittaker
1st Assistant Director - Gin Rosse
Unit Manager - Matthew Connell
Costume - Emily Busch
Production Design - Freya Allen
Behind The Scenes - Darcy Broom
THEATRE CREDITS
Director - Jennifer Sarah Dean
Musical Director - Emma Austin
Writer - Steve Carey
Set/Props Designer - Freya Allen
Costume Designer - Emily Busch
Stage Manager - Gin Rosse
Producer - Steve Carey
Bloomsday Artistic Director - Frances Devlin-Glass
James Joyce - Tobias Miller
Nora/Young Jim - Jacqueline Whiting
Moses The Guide - Emma Austin
Mother - Rebecca Morton
Cranly/Mulligan/Mac - Caleb Whittaker
Priest/Uncle/Carr - Hunter Perske
Wells/Zoe - Melissa Gan
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