The clash of intellects is a sound not heard often on today's stage, but Tom Gallacher's Mr Joyce is Leaving Paris resonates with it. Not that it is new; the play had a substantial success in Dublin perhaps 30 years ago, and there is no reason why this excellent revival, by the Dublin Theatre Company, should not repeat it.
It opens in 1908 in Trieste, where James Joyce, aged 26, lives with Nora Barnacle, not yet his wife, and their two children. Also there is his brother Stanislaus, summoned by James to earn money to support him while he gets on with his creative work and drinks around the town. Stanislaus bitterly reproaches him for his drinking and the neglect of his family, and threatens to leave. But he stays, one of the legion of sacrificial goats demanded by his sibling.
The second act is set in Paris in 1939, and Joyce is preparing to leave under the threat of war and other pressures. He is again under the accusatory cosh, this time wielded by three men and a woman, compound shades of characters, real and fictional, from his past. This is a compelling and convincing study of a genius who put his creative vision above everything. If that required that he be a predator and a betrayer, so be it; but the playwright finds a convincing humanity in his subject. He also sets up the kind of cathartic tensions that engage the emotions and generate real drama. Luke Griffin is a most persuasive James, and Matt Tracey a sturdy Stanislaus; Ronan Wilmot (who also directs), Michael McCabe and Liz Cosgrove are also fine in the smaller roles. A good one.
