James Joyce’s Work Lives On at Lincoln Center Theater

Bloomsday, the annual June 16 celebration marking the single day traced at staggering length in James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” may have passed for this year but homages to the literary lion are alive Off-Broadway. At Irish Repertory Theatre, “Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom,” a one-act piece adapted from the soliloquy that ends Joyce’s magnum opus — by Dublin natives Colum McCann, the noted author, and actor Aedín Moloney — is running through mid-July.Uptown at Lincoln Center Theater, the Colorado-bred, Brooklyn-based playwright Brian Watkins gives us “Epiphany,” a play unabashedly inspired by “The Dead,” the short story that concludes “Dubliners.” You needn’t be familiar with this source material to enjoy Mr. Watkins’s puckish, thoughtful new work, which reminds us that Joyce was himself indebted to an even more canonical influence.The central character in “The Dead,” for reference, is Gabriel Conroy, a teacher and writer who, though based in part on Joyce himself, happens to share his name with a certain archangel — the one who, in the New Testament, announced to a teenage virgin that she would give birth to a very special son. Mr. Watkins’s play, in turn, shares its name with the Christian holiday celebrated shortly after New Year’s Day to mark the revelation of Mary’s baby as the Messiah.Where Joyce set his story at an annual Christmas party thrown by his mortal Gabriel’s adoring aunts, Kate and Julia Morkan, the occasion for the gathering in Mr. Watkins’s play is ostensibly Epiphany. Yet the hostess, an eccentric woman of a certain age who calls herself Morkan, says this shindig will not be religious in nature, and seems curiously fuzzy on other details. It will be up to the guest of honor, her nephew — Gabriel, if you hadn’t guessed — to deliver a speech, as Joyce’s Gabriel did, explaining everything.There’s a problem, though: It becomes plain early on that Watkins’s Gabriel isn’t going to show up. That leaves Morkan and the other guests — who have been awaiting his arrival as one would that of a rock star, or perhaps a celebrity psychic — to fumble about for a while, as Morkan keeps referring to instructive attachments sent with the invitations and burbles on about “creating a tradition.” Then, suddenly, a mysterious stranger arrives.Director Tyne Rafaeli and her design team establish a tone of foreboding from the start. The production opens with a swell of intriguingly abrasive music, by Daniel Kluger; John Lee Beatty’s cavernous set suggests the “very old house, on the banks of a large river” indicated in the script, with worn furniture and enormous windows offering views of a stark, snowy night.The feast prepared by Morkan reinforces the sense of old spirits haunting the joint. Its centerpiece is a goose, whose presentation is marred by a gory accident that had me believing, for a moment, that Mr. Watkins might be headed in a different direction than I’d anticipated, i.e., one more in line with a classic horror story, or maybe a very dark farce.Clearly, the playwright intends to keep us on edge as the dinner proceeds, and the stranger, whose name is Aran (like a trio of islands off Ireland’s west coast mentioned in “The Dead,” if you’re keeping track of parallels), tries to relay the insights Gabriel, her “partner,” has scribbled down on pieces of paper now wet with snow.If the lines that Aran is able to decipher, about the “hospitality” embodied by elders like Gabriel’s aunts, seem less condescending than similar sentiments expressed by Gabriel Conroy, it’s because Aran is, and has, a very different role. Instilled with an almost Zen-like grace by Carmen Zilles, she’s not the character who has an epiphany, as Joyce’s protagonist eventually does, but rather the messenger who provides inspiration to others — a figure more like the biblical Gabriel, it could be argued.While Aran’s presence seems to affect everyone, it looms largest where the eldest celebrants, those closest to death, are concerned. After ignoring various inquiries about the absence of her sister and longtime housemate, Julia, Morkan is finally moved to confront a couple of painful developments; in the role, Marylouise Burke segues from her trademark daftness to poignance without missing a beat, once again proving herself among our most inimitable character actors.Another estimable veteran, Jonathan Hadary, plays Morkan’s old friend, Ames, who finds a childhood memory sparked when Ms. Zilles’s Aran sings, beautifully, “The Lass of Aughrim,” a mournful love song that also figures into “The Dead.” “So who are you?” Ames asks the charming but elusive visitor. Aran only smiles in response, but by the end of “Epiphany,” one senses that Mr. Watkins’s seniors are beginning to connect certain spiritual dots on their own. While their musings certainly aren’t as dense or as dazzling as those of the younger Gabriel Conroy, they’ll engage and move you on their own terms.

James Joyce’s Work Lives On at Lincoln Center Theater

James Joyce’s Work Lives On at Lincoln Center Theater

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