Nikki O'Carroll is punk-inspired poet Jewel Jupiter — the Stephen Dedalus analog — in a play that is inspired by James Joyce's novel "Ulysses."
Stage Review
CHELSEA - Samantha Blossom is the kind of woman who makes breakfast in bed for her philandering husband - somewhat abject, in other words, and over-eager to please. She is also, as you may soon deduce, a contemporized, gender-transposed stand-in for Leopold Bloom, the Dublin-wandering protagonist of James Joyce's "Ulysses." In Sheila Callaghan's award-winning 2006 play "Dead City" - given a proficient New England premiere by the Apollinaire Theatre Company (formerly TheatreZone) - Bloomsday (June 16, 1904) has been moved to New York City a century later.
The parallels are plentiful and intriguing in their own right, but it seems almost a pity that Callaghan has harnessed her considerable creativity to so confining a structure. Scenes are of necessity highly episodic, with every actor other than Shelley Brown (as Samantha) and Nikki O'Carroll (as punk-inspired poet Jewel Jupiter, the Stephen Dedalus analog) shouldering several roles and thus sowing some inevitable confusion.
Over the past 12 years, director Danielle Fauteux Jacques has cultivated a talented company, many members of which shine in this latest endeavor - Becca A. Lewis, especially, as an overbearing lesbian med student, and later an inanity-spouting British dotcom potentate. Danielle L. DiDio nails the entitled airs - and accent - of a spoiled Upper East Side matron, but five roles is a bit too many for anyone to juggle, or the audience to keep track of.
Everyone - starting with the National Public Radio announcer who directly addresses Samantha as she butters gluten-free toast for her lounge-singer husband (suitably smooth Phil Thompson) - serves as Greek chorus, narrating and commenting on Samantha's internal/external journey. However, the comic promise of an early scene in which Samantha gets a body wrap (low-budget aluminum foil works nicely) while two attendants reflect her inner turmoil - "Just don't think of Gabriel's mistress," they intone - is too rarely delivered on later in the play. Samantha is in constant motion: visiting a gravesite and maternity ward, pursuing an online assignation, tracking Jewel to the throbbing underworld of a Meatpacking District club.
Emily Getchell's set, which starts out a simple array of Rothko-like color-field panels, adapts well - abetted by Jacques's inventive lighting - in accommodating all the rapidly changing venues. Still, Callaghan's action is too diffuse, as if geared to a post-MTV generation. The most affecting scene is one in which Samantha simply stares into the audience and addresses a silent, unseen former colleague turned bartender (he has evidently hit hard times): the whirl slows, and a real connection is made.
The script itself seems a case of more promise than delivery, though Callaghan appears all set to soar once less tethered. Meanwhile the actors of Apollinaire have proved themselves well worth seeing, whatever work they happen to be appearing in.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
