The Molly Bloom Duologue: A Preview

Listen to a 4 minute preview of the 3 hour Molly Bloom Duologue with Caraid O'Brien and Bernadette Quigley.  The complete text recorded live will be broadcast on Monday, June 16th at 11pm on wbai.org.

Radio Bloomsday 2014: The Molly Bloom Duologue

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

Another Day at Radio Bloomsday Central

The legendary Jerry Stiller stopped by the Radio Foundation to record a couple of Bloom monologues for Radio Bloomsday, which is just 8 days away! First, he recorded an excerpt from Lestrygonians as Bloom thinks about all things people like to eat that he finds disgusting: oysters, unsightly like a clot of phelgm, snails out of the ground, Chinese eggs fifty years old, tainted game, jugged hare.

And then Jerry performed an excerpt for Aeolus, as Bloom walks into the newspaper office, stares at the old man setting the type backwards and thinks of his father and his Hebrew books at Passover: "Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that's the other." He was brilliant, rattling off the Hebrew like no other in the middle of this Irish novel.

On Monday, the incredible John Lithgow recorded a dense excerpt from the Oxen of the Sun episode of Ulysses written in the style of Charles Lamb. This is definitely shaping up to be our most incredible Bloomsday celebration ever. In addition to Jerry and John, our cast list includes Alec Baldwin, Wallace Shawn, Kate Valk, Jim Fletcher, Zeroboy, Aaron Beall, Bob Odenkirk, Paul Dooley, Mara McEwin, Corey Carthew, Laura Barnett, Mark Greenfield, John O'Callaghan, Marc Singer, Roma Downey, Melanie Martinez, Laura Ross, Janet Coleman, David Dozer, the students of Belvedere College in Dublin, Fiona Walsh, Fiana Tobin, Bernadette Quigley, Laurence Lowry, Shawnee Benton-Gibson, Marie-Louise Bowe and many more! Director Caraid O'Brien pictured above with Jerry in a photo by Nellie Gilles will perform the complete Molly Bloom episode live beginning around 11.30pm. Don't forget to tune in on Thursday, June 16 at 7pm on WBAI in NYC and KPFK in Los Angeles and on wbai.org anywhere in the world.