Winner of the 2000 Tony Award for Best Musical, James Joyce's The Dead comes to L.A. not long after its New York closing, with most of its cast intact. And what a splendid cast it is, starting with Stephen Bogardus serving as narrator/participant Gabriel Conroy (played by Christopher Walken in New York). Bogardus is poised and articulate as he guides the audience through the annual Christmas party at the home of his aunts Julia and Kate (Sally Ann Howes and Marni Nixon), in 1903 Dublin. Joyce's story (part of "Dubliners") is a warm, subtle recollection of the pleasures and pains of middle-class life in a Victorian age, with characterization emerging between the narrative lines as the party unfolds over a long night filled with eating, drinking, storytelling and dancing.
What Nelson and Davey have done is to use bits and pieces of Joyce's prose to advance the action and to find (or invent) the songs and dances which illuminate the proceedings with such color and feeling. Everything unfolds so naturally and easily that I had the feeling I was eavesdropping on an actual event, not watching a show. This could have led to boredom had the Morkan sisters (and everyone else at the party) not been Irish, with traditional gifts of poetry and song, humor and tale telling. Since each of those at the party knows he or she must take a turn at entertaining, each guest is ready with a well-rehearsed number, with the surprises coming when the whiskey begins to flow and the feet begin to thrum (much to the displeasure of the unseen grump living downstairs).
In between the dozen-odd vaudeville-like turns, Joyce's viewpoint begins to emerge, one that is tinged with sadness for a way of life that was fading out with the Morkan family, and for the hints of despair leaking out beneath the general hilarity. The climax comes at the end of the night when Gabriel learns, in a final song, that his wife Greta's heart has always belonged to her first, now-deceased, love. This painful truth about the complexities of human relationships and the mysteries of love (and life) is what lifts The Dead above the level of a sweet but innocuous musicale and gives it stature and importance.
