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The event
Philadelphia's award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company presents an indie-rock cabaret roughly based on the rough life of Lucia Joyce, schizophrenic daughter of the famous author James Joyce. Their visit is sponsored by Stanford's departments of English and Drama.
The history
Paris, the 1920s. With the publication of Ulysses, James Joyce is the toast of the town. His wife Nora and his children, Giorgio and Lucia, join him in the social life of the Paris avant-garde. Lucia Joyce is alternately promiscuous and sheltered. A dancer at the dawn of modern dance, she considers herself to be the real genius of the Joyce family. She gets romantically entwined with her father's protege Samuel Beckett, and with the sculptor Alexander Calder. As she approaches 30, her behavior becomes increasingly erratic. She is sent from clinic to clinic and finally confined to a mental hospital in England. Her family and friends do not visit. She lives in the clinic for more than 30 years, until the end of her life.
The setup
JAMES JOYCE IS DEAD AND SO IS PARIS takes you to Lucia's mental institution. Together with her fellow patients, Lucia has put together a rock band and a series of songs about her life, her love affairs, her parents, her struggle with her own genius and her ultimate incarceration. As far as she's concerned, she's brilliant, she's crazy like a fox, and she's a hell of a lot hipper than Dad.
The company
The Philadelphia-based Pig Iron Theatre Company has rapidly become known as a rising star in their home city and as a unique, innovative voice in American theatre. Founded in 1995, the ensemble's physical precision, lyrical writing, and exuberant, whimsical productions have earned them 27 Barrymore Award Nominations in the past 5 years; three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; and a Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe. JAMES JOYCE IS DEAD . . . was recently nominated for 4 Barrymore Awards, including Best Original Music, Best Ensemble, and Best New Play. Pig Iron has toured widely to theaters in New York, London, Edinburgh, Germany, Romania, Brazil, Italy, Ireland and Poland. These performances are the company's first on the West Coast.
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"Prodigious talent and discipline" --Village Voice
"Dark, funny, moving . . . this is first rate, top drawer" -- Toni Morrison, author