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THE PARABLE OF THE PLUMS. Adapted from James Joyce's Ulysses. Directed by Brian Fleming, Raymond Keane, and Bisi Adigun. Millennium Spire, O'Connell Street, Dublin. 16 June 2004.
The process of transforming a work of literature from the page to the stage is fraught with complex issues of representation. Most writers and directors of stage adaptations strive for fidelity to the original source, but often there is disagreement about exactly how this fidelity should be achieved. Some argue that performances of literature should represent the text as literally as possible, while others argue that it is, in fact, more faithful to represent the spirit of the text, even if that means changing some of its particularities. The Parable of the Plums, a theatrical representation of the Aeolus chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses, boldly embraced the second of these arguments. Performed in Dublin as part of Bloomsday, an annual celebration of Joyce's fiction held on 16 June, The Parable of the Plums did more than simply represent Joyce's text; this performance also made a powerful statement about contemporary race relations and Irish identity.
Named after the protagonist of Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, Bloomsday features hundreds of performances of Joyce's works in pubs, restaurants, parks, on street corners, and professional stages. This particular Bloomsday marked the centenary of the events of Ulysses, which are set in Dublin on 16 June 1904. The Parable of the Plums was the largest Bloomsday performance since the festival began fifty years ago, with 170 amateur and professional performers on the stage and several thousand people in the audience. But more importantly, it was groundbreaking and transgressive as a work of Irish street theatre. First, because the performance contained no spoken text, relied exclusively on music and dance, and was a collaborative effort in its construction, The Parable of the Plums broke with the tradition of Irish theatre in general, which tends to privilege the text and the individual author as creator. It also broke with the tradition of Bloomsday performances in particular, which are typically word-for-word readings taken directly from Joyce's texts. second, the organizers recruited performers from Dublin's inner-city Asian and West African communities. Given the recent surge in anti-immigrant sentiment in Dublin, coupled with a public referendum passed five days before...