WBAI Broadcasts Caraid O’Brien &
Bernadette Quigley's Complete Molly Bloom Monologue as a Duo Dialogue
on
Radio Bloomsday 2014
New York, NY -- Back
by popular demand, the innovative performance of the complete Molly Bloom
monologue from James Joyce’s Ulysses recorded live on June 16,
2013 by not one but two actresses, Caraid O’Brien and Bernadette
Quigley, will be rebroadcast nationwide on Monday, June 16, 2014.
Tune into Radio Bloomsday on WBAI (99.5 FM in NYC) or stream
at wbai.org beginning at 7pm until the wee hours of the
morning. Each year, Radio Bloomsday ends its 7 hour nationwide
broadcast of James Joyce’s Ulysses with the novel's final
celebrated chapter – a two and a half hour passion filled monologue, by the
novel’s heroine, Molly Bloom. For the second year the re-imagined
monologue will be presented as a conversation that Molly has with her younger
self, with every word still faithful to the text of one of the most celebrated
chapters in literature ever. The Molly duo begins at 11.
The Molly Bloom
soliloquy is also the most sexually explicit chapter in Ulysses and
the reason why the book is so frequently censored. Molly, a soprano, has
spent the day in bed with her lover Blazes Boylan while her husband, Leopold
Bloom wanders around Dublin. Throughout the two and a half hour episode, a
flood of memories is unleashed as the two Mollys spend the night together, attempting to unravel the mysteries
of their art, their lovers and their lives. Despite all the men that have crossed Molly’s path, she is her own
most faithful companion.
Ms. O'Brien
says, "From the moment I first read Molly Bloom’s monologue on my bed in
Mount Scopus in Jerusalem where I was studying Yiddish literature, that
episode became the road map for my own artistic experience. Like Molly, I
fantasize about a time of endless financial resources, when I have an
limitless supply of costumes to wear onstage, and can throw a handful of
tea in the pot without scrimping to make it last as long as possible.
Like Molly, I am a performer who spends more time in bed than I do
on stage."
Earlier in the
evening, from 7:00 p.m. on, WBAI's Radio Bloomsday's broadcast
includes a kaleidoscope of global artistic talent united by a passion for
getting under the hood of the most influential novel of the twentieth century -
James Joyce's Ulysses. Commemorating Father’s Day, the
broadcast explores the often complicated relationship between fathers and their
children as portrayed in Ulysses.
This year’s performers
ranging in age from 5 to 85 years of age include Alec Baldwin, Aaron
Beall, Mannix Beall-O’Brien, Marie-Louise Bowe, Justin Vivian Bond, Charles
Busch, Janet Coleman, Frank Delaney, Paul Dooley, Roma Downey, David Dozer,
Anne Enright, Jim Fletcher, Garrison Keillor, Michael Laurence, John Lithgow,
Marc Maron, Nick McDonell, Paul Muldoon, Felix Norris-Lindsay, John
O’Callaghan, Bob Odenkirk, Wallace Shawn, Marc Singer, T. Ryder Smith, Jerry
Stiller, Tarab, Kate Valk, Heather Woodbury, Fiona Walsh, Zeroboy and many
others. Musicians appearing on the broadcast include Australian performers
Roger Norris, Graeme Norris and Susannah Norris-Lindsay, All Ireland button
accordion champion, Martin O’Connell, fiddle player Marie-Louise Bowe, singer
Eileen Ruby, Steven Antonelli, Ralph Martin, Johnny Coughlan, and Brad Maestas.
The Mollys Bloom (Caraid O'Brien and Bernadette Quigley) photographed by Louie Correia
BIO's:
Born in Galway,
Ireland, Caraid O'Brien is a writer, performer and director.
She is the director of Radio Bloomsday, an annual marathon radio
performance of James Joyce’s Ulysses featuring over 100
performers on WBAI. Her direction of Bloomsday on Broadway for Symphony
Space is available on CD starring Stephen Colbert. Caraid graduated summa
cum laude, phi beta kappa with a BA in Yiddish literature from Boston
University, studied Yiddish and Hebrew at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
and Irish (Gaelic) at the National University of Ireland. www.caraidobrien.com
Bernadette
Quigley has performed the
Molly Bloom soliloquy live at Symphony Space. Her many film and t.v. credits
include The Suspect, Dream House starring Daniel
Craig, The House Is Burning, Jim Sheridan’s Oscar-nominated In
America, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Third Watch, Kings and
most recently, Unforgettable. Quigley has also performed on
and off-Broadway and extensively in regional theaters across the U.S. www.bernadettequigley.com