Lunchtime at the Ormond: An Excerpt from James Joyces’ Ulysses

An excerpt from James Joyce’s Ulysses brought to life with narration by Ben Luxon, Irish songs sung by tenor Dan Luxon, piano accompaniment by Josh Luxon-Robinson, and Lucy Bardo on the cello.

Join us for this unique special event that vividly brings the world of Joyce’s – and Bloom’s – 1920’s Dublin – onto the stage of the Sandisfield Arts Center.

Whether you’ve read Joyce’s Ulysses once, many times, or never (and can’t imagine why anyone would), this afternoon’s performance will open your eyes and ears to the pleasures of the real, gritty world that inspired Joyce. You may even find that these characters from a century ago aren’t so different from the people who hang out at our own local pubs.

The action of this exerpt takes place in the Ormond Bar where Mina Kennedy and Lydia Douce are the bar maids and seven named male customers congregate, the “saloon” behind the bar where several of the men go to smoke, play the piano, and sing, the “diningroom” next door where Bloom sups with Richie Goulding and keeps his eyes and ears on people in the bar.

From the Joyce Project and originally from Twitter:

Photograph from the early 1900s, held in the National Library of Ireland, showing the view from Wellington Quay across the Grattan Bridge to Upper Ormond Quay, where the Ormond Hotel sits several doors to the left of the two bell towers of the Presbyterian church. Source: twitter.com.