Review Roundup: THE DEAD, 1904 at the Irish Rep

Next up at the Irish Repertory Theatre is The Dead, 1904, the immersive adaptation of James Joyce’s classic story. Adapted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon and novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz, it is directed by Irish Rep co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly.

James Joyce’s novella, “The Dead,” describes a holiday gathering on January 6, 1904, the Feast of the Epiphany, in the Dublin home of two elderly sisters, Kate and Julia Morkan, and their niece, Mary Jane. At the party are students, friends, a celebrated tenor, a lost alcoholic, and the couple, Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. Over the course of an evening, there are conversations, music, dancing, and dining. There are speeches and disagreements – polite and impolite – and when it is all over Gabriel learns something about his wife that changes his sense of who she is and who they are to each other, of what it actually means to be alive, and to be dead.

The cast of The Dead, 1904 is led by Tony Award nominee Kate Baldwin and Christopher Innvar, with Tony Award nominee Mary Beth Peil and Heather Bixler, Úna Clancy, Terry Donnelly, Karen Killeen, Michael Kuhn, Aedin Moloney, Michael Mellamphy, Jodie Sweeney, and Gary Troy.

Check out what the critics are saying about the revival below!

Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review: A return production, in fact. The Dead, 1904—adapted by Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz from the Joyce short story, directed by Ciarán O’Reilly—originated as a site-specific production at the Historical Society back in 2016. A delightful divertissement, it was remounted in 2017 and 2018. Now, after a hiatus, it seems to have grown even more evocative. Or perhaps our perceptions of ghosts and the dead have changed since 2016. This two-hour trip through time, fueled by piano and violin, cider and stout, is a decided change of pace from a typical evening’s entertainment. Between the talents on display, the turn of the century (1900) ambience, and the hearty meal served communally to the 1904 and 2024 guests, The Dead is a distinctly unique evening’s entertainment.

Elysa Gardner, New York Stage Review: Christopher Innvar, stepping into a role played by the estimable Boyd Gaines eight years ago, brings an easy authority and charisma to Gabriel, while capturing the complacency that, for example, prompts him to ask Lily about her personal life. And in his scene alone with Gretta, played by a tender, radiant Kate Baldwin—one of musical theater’s more elegant leading ladies, who happily gets to sing here as well—Innvar conveys both the unease such men can experience when their perspectives come into question and the curiosity and yearning that distinguishes some from others.

Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: Devotees of Joyce may quibble about this staging. Unlike the quintessentially Irish author’s original story or John Huston’s memorable 1987 film adaptation, the script by Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz doesn’t really explore the interior monologue of its taciturn and writerly hero, Gabriel, except in a well-executed final scene where he and Gretta settle down after the party in their hotel bedroom (situated for this show on the third floor, just above the dining room, with the audience cramming in on one side to face the windows overlooking Central Park and the Met). Here, Gretta drifts off to sleep after confessing the memory of a girlhood love that the evening’s festivities have jostled back into her consciousness. And Gabriel is finally able to articulate aloud his deep-seated anxieties about the choices he’s made as well as about the overall evanescence of life — as snow magically falls just outside the window. The Dead, 1904 captures the sublimely melancholy mood of Joyce’s story, like a melody from the past that’s bubbled back into our consciousness, and that alone is cause to rejoice.

Average Rating: 83.3%