Wild Geese Players of Seattle

posted
Jun 16, 2020

posted
Jun 02, 2020

Bloomsday — Seattle 2020

The Wild Geese Players of Seattle will present a staged reading of Chapter 11, “Sirens”, adapted from the 1922 edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses. For the first time ever, our annual reading will be presented online and available for all to stream on Bloomsday, June 16, 2020 here at WildGeeseSeattle.org.

Update: Watch the video.

Bloomsday (Bloom’s day, named for Ulysses’ main character, Leopold Bloom) refers to the 24-hour period on June 16, 1904 in which Ulysses is set. Ulysses follows the wanderings of Bloom, a Jewish everyman, and Stephen Dedalus, a young writer and Joyce’s alter ego, as they wander the streets of Dublin.

Join us online for Chapter 11, Sirens, where it is 4 pm and the Dublin characters gather at the Ormond Hotel by the banks of the River Liffey. Leopold Bloom joins Father Cowley, Simon Dedalus, Richie Goulding, Lenehan, and Ben Dollard among others, to enjoy an afternoon of songs and music, with the divine Miss Douce and the comely Miss Kennedy setting the scene.

The Readers

Narrators: Claudia Finn, Irene Calvo, Bruce Greeley, Iain Edgewater
Miss Lydia “Bronze” Douce: Olivia Bermingham-McDonogh
Miss Mina “Gold” Kennedy: Ellen Coyle
Bloom: Maura Donegan
Bloom Interior: Mark Gunning, Maura Donegan
Simon Dedalus: Bill Barnes
Lenehan: Leon Mattigosh
Blazes Boylan: Joseph Ryan
Ben Dollard: Joseph Ryan
Father Cowley: Lynne Compton
George Lidwell: Leon Mattigosh
Richie Goulding: Roger Berger
Boots: Joseph Ryan
Robert Emmet: Bill Barnes
Tom Kernan: Roger Berger
Stripling: Roger Berger
Shopgirl: Ellen Coyle
Conductor: Roger Berger

Production

Co-Director: Lynne Compton
Co-Director: Roger Berger
Script: George Reilly
Recorder: Joseph Ryan
Recording Editor: Helen Brew
Publicity: Claudia Finn, George Reilly
Poster: Ellen Coyle, Leon Mattigosh, Claudia Finn

Special Thanks to Matthew Donegan-Ryan

Script

Read along with the script. Adapted by George Reilly from the Project Gutenberg text.

Press Release

This is our twenty-third year of Bloomsday readings. (Press Release).

Notes

Co-director Roger Berger has provided some additional notes on the Sirens chapter.

Commentary on Sirens

Other Wild Geese Events

See our archives for details of our previous readings.

posted at 23:45  · 
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posted
May 29, 2020

2020 Bloomsday Press Release

23rd Annual Staged Reading / Virtual Bloomsday Celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses

The Wild Geese Players of Seattle join Bloomsday celebrations across the globe honoring Ulysses’ author James Joyce. For the first time ever, our annual reading will be presented online and available for all to stream on Bloomsday, June 16, 2020 at WildGeeseSeattle.org.

Bloomsday (Bloom’s day, named for Ulysses’ main character, Leopold Bloom) refers to the 24-hour period on June 16, 1904 in which Ulysses is set. Ulysses follows the wanderings of Bloom, a Jewish everyman, and Stephen Dedalus, a young writer and Joyce’s alter ego, as they wander the streets of Dublin.

Join us online for Chapter 11, Sirens, where it is 4 pm and the Dublin characters gather at the Ormond Hotel by the banks of the River Liffey. Leopold Bloom joins Father Cowley, Simon Dedalus, Richie Goulding, Lenehan, and Ben Dollard among others, to enjoy an afternoon of songs and music, with the divine Miss Douce and comely Miss Kennedy setting the scene.

Since 1998, The Wild Geese Players of Seattle have presented staged readings of Irish literature, by writers such as James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. The Geese are a diverse group of people who are Irish-born or have Irish connections, who share an interest in Irish literature. We believe that poetry and certain novels are best read aloud, that some works are better heard than read.

For more information, visit the Wild Geese Players’ website www.WildGeeseSeattle.org, like our Facebook group, or follow @WildGeeseSea on Twitter.

Contacts:
Roger Berger, director, or George Reilly WildGeeseSeattle@gmail.com
Claudia Finn cfinnseattle@gmail.com

posted at 23:00  · 
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posted
May 19, 2019

Bloomsday — Seattle 2019

The Wild Geese Players of Seattle will present a staged reading of Chapter 10, “Wandering Rocks”, adapted from the 1922 edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

We have read from Ulysses every Bloomsday since 1998. After concluding Ulysses in 2013, we started afresh five years ago. This year, we’re reading Chapter 10, “Wandering Rocks”.

We’ll be reading excerpts from the chapter at Folio on Friday, June 14th, and the entire chapter at the Seattle Central Library on Sunday, June 16th.

Chapter 10: Wandering Rocks

The Wandering Rocks chapter is the only chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses with a brief, passing structural relationship to Homer. In Homer, Circe warns Ulysses to avoid the Wandering Rocks because they were dangerous for sea navigation. It is really taken from Jason and the Argonauts’ story of their perilous sea journey back to Corinth with the Golden Fleece.

Joyce was reputed to have used a compass, ruler, set square, map, and a timepiece when he was constructing this episode. Here we are first fully introduced to the Dublin of the early twentieth century, a city that the book would eventually immortalize. Neither Stephen Dedalus nor Leopold Bloom dominates the chapter. It is Joyce’s “woman-city”—Dublin—that becomes the essence of the story.

This is the central chapter of Joyce’s book, offered in 19 scenes, with the first functioning as a classic prologue and the nineteenth as an epilogue. The Wandering Rocks serves as a bridge between the two halves of the book and a miniature of the whole.

In true Joyce style, he used to play a board game called Labyrinth with his daughter Lucia. What we are witnessing is that labyrinth transported to the streets of Dublin. The characters of the city pass the mid-afternoon hour of 3–4pm. Their comings and goings become framed between the primary journeys of Church and State. The ambling Father Conmee represents the Roman Catholic Church, and the cavalcade of the Governor-General of Ireland, the Earl of Dudley, represents the British State. The chapter is quite cinematic in its visual presentation. Its conclusion is a city crowded with people walking, talking, running and singing!

Bloomsday Event at Folio, June 14th, 2019

6:00–8:00pm on Friday, June 14th, 2019,
Folio Seattle,
93 Pike St #307,
Seattle, WA 98101

Directions to Folio in the Pike Place Market.

Folio Seattle presents a talk about Joyce and Ulysses by Roger Berger and the Wild Geese reading excerpts from the “Wandering Rocks” chapter.

Please RSVP to the Facebook event.

Bloomsday Reading at the Seattle Central Library, June 16th, 2019

2:00–4:00pm on Sunday, June 16th, 2019,
The Seattle Central Library,
Microsoft Auditorium, Level 1,
1000 Fourth Ave,
Seattle, WA 98104

Map.

We will read the entire “Wandering Rocks” chapter at the Library.

Donations towards costs of posters and props are welcome. Please arrive before 2:00pm to find a seat. The reading will take about two hours.

Please RSVP to the Facebook event.

Poster

We encourage you to download Irene Calvo’s Wandering Rocks poster (PDF, 600KB) and post it around town.

Press Release

This is our twenty-second year of Bloomsday readings. (Press Release).

Commentary on Wandering Rocks

Other Wild Geese Events

See our archives for details of our previous readings.

posted at 12:00  · 
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