JOYCE’S ODYSSEY ON STAGE

Elevator Repair Service turns the
impossible into a joyous theatrical sprint

Beloved, despised, or abandoned halfway through by most readers, Joyce’s Ulysses is one of those books you know or have heard of. Published after the carnage of World War I, when the world felt confusing and utterly broken, this novel embraces its craziness proudly, almost in the spirit of contemporary Surrealism and Dada. 700 pages of walking, getting distracted, and questioning absolutely everything; nothing huge happens and that is the point.

 The company

Only a theater company like Elevator Repair Service would have the nerve and skill to bring Ulysses onstage and make it engaging and lively, squeezing an entire world of characters and situations into less than three hours. Their Gatz last year was so good, I raced back for this new production at The Public Theater, masterfully directed by John Collins, with co-direction and dramaturgy by the almost mythical Scott Shepherd, an actor who could memorize a dictionary and make it sound thrilling.

Scott Shepherd

In this New York City premiere, seven performers begin with a sober table read that quickly spirals into a beer-splashed, brainy joyride through Joyce’s magnum opus, and all of them play more than one character. The story follows two people who do not know each other during one single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin. A clock placed on the backdrop makes sure we never lose track of what time it is.

Vin Knight and Dee Beasnael

Christopher-Rashee Stevenson is Stephen Dedalus, a young teacher and writer who thinks too much about life, art, and his past. Stevenson navigates Joyce’s crazy stylistic zigzags with dexterity while giving us the ideal insecure young poet, and ensuring that the rapid-fire role-swaps, that include him playing a cat, never feel muddled. He gives voice to the famous line, uncomfortably perfect for our times: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

Maggie Hoffman

Vin Knight as Leopold Bloom is downright hilarious, embodying a proper middle-aged advertising agent in a bowler hat, dark blazer, striking green vest, and mid-length skirt, the perfect picture of absurdist comedy. Bloom and his wife Molly lost their only son and grew apart, that is why his thoughts are sometimes tinged with grief, making the role complicated. Knight shows depth, verbal agility, and Commedia dell’Arte physicality, making us care for the poor fellow, and creating some of the production’s wilder moments.

Vin Knight, Kate Benson, and Scott Shepherd

What do they do? In the morning, Dedalus teaches a class and argues with friends while Bloom makes breakfast, runs errands, and reads the paper. The afternoon is as uneventful as the morning; Bloom goes to a funeral, walks around, talks to people, thinks, while Stephen wanders around with friends. Until the evening, when they finally meet; they talk, walk, and end up at Bloom’s home, nothing much. Maggie Hoffman’s handling of Molly Bloom’s climactic monologue gives us a welcome moment of clarity amid the delightful chaos and closes the play. She is Leopold’s wife, strong-willed and emotional.

Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, Stephanie Weeks,
Scott Shepherd, Vin Knight, Dee Beasnael, Kate Benson

The rest of the ensemble, Stephanie Weeks, Dee Beasnael, and Kate Benson ricochet between characters, narrators, and moods at dizzying speed. They execute their roles with incredible precision, attacking the difficult text with fearless passion. Shepherd is wonderful in every role, quite literally shepherding us through the play and keeping our attention happily alive. His Blazes Boylan (Molly Bloom’s lover) is hysterical, acted with enough swagger to register like the perfect dandy from an early 1900s cabaret show.

Stephanie Weeks, Scott Shepherd, and Vin KnightChristopher-Rashee Stevenson

The design team deserves a pint of its own. dots’ set keeps things deceptively simple: tables, chairs, projections, and just enough visual suggestion to let Joyce’s language and the actors’ skills do the hard work. The stage becomes a pub, a bedroom, a street, someone’s psyche, in the blink of an eye. Enver Chakartash’s costumes are also very clever and poetic: a jacket here, a hat there, and suddenly we are somewhere else or meeting someone new.

Scott Shepherd, Stephanie Weeks, and Christopher-Rashee StevensonStephanie Weeks, Scott Shepherd, and Dee Beasnael

The show’s sense of momentum owes a great deal to Marika Kent’s lighting, which snaps scenes into focus and fractures space with the help of Matthew Deinhart’s brilliant projections. During the fast-forwarded moments, when text is skipped, the actors snap into memorable whiplash mini-scenes as words flash across them. Meanwhile, Ben Williams’ sound design feels like a living organism, and accompanies the whole piece with its effects, hums and reverbs; you can feel the cohesion between cast and crew, they are truly in unison.

Stephanie WeeksVin Knight

ERS’s Ulysses is smart without being smug, anarchic without being sloppy, and theatrical in the most joyful sense of the word. You won’t catch every reference but you will catch the spirit, the humor, and the humanity. Don’t miss it. You will walk out feeling enriched, a little amazed, and smiling, possibly even tempted to finally read the whole book.

Maggie Hoffman

photos by Joan Marcus

Ulysses
Elevator Repair Service
part of Under the Radar Festival
Martinson Hall at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St
2 hours, 30 minutes
ends on March 1, 2026
for tickets, call 212.967.7555 or visit The Public Theater

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