The Dead, 1904 Adapted from James Joyce’s short story by Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz

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 Irish Repertory Theatre production of The Dead,1904 is a new adaptation in which an audience of 40 guests attend the Misses Morkan’s holiday party, move from room to room with the actors, listen to the music, watch the dances, dine on a meal inspired by the menu in the novella, and observe the characters in their interactions. The production will take place in an authentic Victorian mansion, the American Irish Historical Society, perfectly evoking the atmosphere of the story.