0:00:03 > 0:00:05This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:05 > 0:00:07"I'm as good an Irishman as him
0:00:07 > 0:00:10"and I want to see all classes and creeds being able to live well
0:00:10 > 0:00:12"if they work.
0:00:12 > 0:00:13"Count me out.
0:00:13 > 0:00:18"I mean, work in the wider sense, writing for the newspapers,
0:00:18 > 0:00:21"both the brain and brawn belong to Ireland.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23"You suspect..."
0:00:23 > 0:00:26..that I may be important because I belong to Ireland,
0:00:26 > 0:00:32but I suspect that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me.
0:00:34 > 0:00:35You confuse me.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38We can't change the country.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42Let us change the subject.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52My wife, the prima donna,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55taken a few years since.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57A handsome picture.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03At what o'clock did you dine?
0:01:03 > 0:01:06Sometime yesterday.
0:01:06 > 0:01:08Day before yesterday.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10It's stuffy here.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13You just come with me and talk things over.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17The thing is to walk and you'll feel a different man.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20It's not far. Lean on me.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Yes.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39When you do "a cut, a cut"... Oh, that's a good idea.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41..and then she'll just come round here.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43I'll see that and just get on it.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45Mary and Maeve. Yeah. Can you be back about ten to two?
0:01:45 > 0:01:48We'll have a little practice at pulling the bed back.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50'In the spring of 2015,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54'we were rehearsing our adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56'We've been invited to tour the play to China
0:01:56 > 0:01:58'and, for a small theatre company like ours,
0:01:58 > 0:02:02'this was an amazing opportunity and challenge.'
0:02:04 > 0:02:07Oy, oy!
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Look at that!
0:02:09 > 0:02:12We had already toured Ulysses around Scotland and Ireland in venues
0:02:12 > 0:02:14a similar size to the Tron,
0:02:14 > 0:02:17but I was aware during those final rehearsal moments that this
0:02:17 > 0:02:20intimate piece of theatre would be playing to some very large venues
0:02:20 > 0:02:24in China, and, for us, this was all new territory.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28SHE BARKS
0:02:34 > 0:02:39# O sanctissima
0:02:39 > 0:02:43# O piissima. #
0:02:48 > 0:02:51I also couldn't help thinking what the Chinese audience
0:02:51 > 0:02:55would make of this bold, bawdy and, at times, shocking play.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20'Opening night in Shanghai.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23'The performance has been sold out for a few weeks now,
0:03:23 > 0:03:24'which is a great start.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26'But first, a press conference -
0:03:26 > 0:03:29'a chance for me to explain what the play is all about.'
0:03:29 > 0:03:33So, there you have it. We are here now.
0:03:33 > 0:03:38It's a crazy book and it's a crazy production with the philosophy...
0:03:38 > 0:03:41I took the philosophy that you can do anything you want on stage
0:03:41 > 0:03:44and hopefully we've achieved that.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49Looks great, doesn't it?
0:03:49 > 0:03:51Love that. That will be so much easier.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54You just feel acoustically straight away...
0:03:55 > 0:03:58As you know, it's been a challenge getting this production
0:03:58 > 0:04:00up and running in the first place.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02It's been tremendous for us to have it here
0:04:02 > 0:04:04and actually have it documented.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06Every single show I've ever done, all I've got a record of
0:04:06 > 0:04:09are a few production photographs and nothing else,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13so to actually have the whole thing documented is very exciting.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20'Ulysses is the story of one man's journey through Dublin
0:04:20 > 0:04:22'on June 16th 1904.'
0:04:22 > 0:04:26The first night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's...
0:04:29 > 0:04:34'This man, Leopold Bloom, visits funerals, pubs, his workplace,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38'the seashore, a brothel and finally to bed with his wife Molly,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40'who he knows has been having an affair
0:04:40 > 0:04:43'with the unscrupulous Blazes Boylan.'
0:04:43 > 0:04:46That's good, actually, you going through the middle.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49It's a nice picture, actually. Good.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52'It's also a story of the lost love of the Blooms,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54'the grief for their dead son Rudy,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57'the anti-Semitism that Bloom confronts daily
0:04:57 > 0:05:01'and his concern for another young Dubliner, Stephen Dedalus.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03'Our stage adaptation takes audiences on
0:05:03 > 0:05:07'a journey through this great 20th century novel.'
0:05:07 > 0:05:10When I read Ulysses first, I was a teenager,
0:05:10 > 0:05:11and I was told that it was a dirty book
0:05:11 > 0:05:13which is why all teenagers read Ulysses,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16and then we realise it's not as dirty as we think it is.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19When I read it properly, I was 18 or 19,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23and Leopold Bloom seemed like a relatively old man of 38,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and then when I came to adapt it for the stage first,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29I was 36 and we were contemporaries,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32and there was a whole understanding of him this other way.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36And then, when I sat down with you and we actually began to pare back
0:05:36 > 0:05:39that adaptation, sort of make a new play from it,
0:05:39 > 0:05:43I was 53 and he was 38 and I envied him his relative youth,
0:05:43 > 0:05:45so he had changed from being an old man to being
0:05:45 > 0:05:47a young man as the play went on.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50That's the great thing about Ulysses.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53It's a book you can reread over and over again throughout your life
0:05:53 > 0:05:56and each time, you have a different understanding of it
0:05:56 > 0:05:59based on where you are in your life at that time.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Dream it all again.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13Leopold Bloom.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16When I was first asked to adapt Ulysses for the stage, I said no.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18I was terrified.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21I sat down with the director and I said, "No, this cannot be done.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24"Absolutely there was no way. Only a lunatic would do it.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26"The only possible way you could do it..."
0:06:26 > 0:06:28I took out a pen and I said,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31"If you possibly broke up Molly's soliloquy,
0:06:31 > 0:06:36"because this itself is such a tour-de-force single one-woman show
0:06:36 > 0:06:38"that it's a play in itself."
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Yes, because he never did a thing like that before
0:06:40 > 0:06:44as asked to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs
0:06:44 > 0:06:46since the City Arms Hotel
0:06:46 > 0:06:50when he used to pretend to be laid up to make himself interesting
0:06:50 > 0:06:52to that old faggot Mrs Riordan!
0:06:53 > 0:06:56I was against having it at the back of the play,
0:06:56 > 0:06:57at the back of the book.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01If you actually had Molly's soliloquy at the beginning
0:07:01 > 0:07:06of the play, if it began with Bloom getting into bed, falling asleep,
0:07:06 > 0:07:08if Molly's soliloquy commenced,
0:07:08 > 0:07:11and then if Bloom could drift in and out of Molly's soliloquy
0:07:11 > 0:07:16and could relive the day backwards, if the characters could become,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19with that illogical logic of a dream,
0:07:19 > 0:07:22they could move him around throughout his whole day.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25Molly could perpetually commentate upon what's happening
0:07:25 > 0:07:28at the same time as this action was going on.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30I explained this to a theatre director
0:07:30 > 0:07:31and then I left the restaurant
0:07:31 > 0:07:34having somehow signed the contract to adapt it,
0:07:34 > 0:07:36having told him that it was impossible to adapt.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40Anyhow, love it's not, or he'd be off his feed thinking of her
0:07:40 > 0:07:43so either it was one of those night women
0:07:43 > 0:07:46or some little bitch he's got in with on the sly
0:07:46 > 0:07:50and then the usual kissing my bottom was to hide it.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53Do you remember our first meeting when I had to come over and
0:07:53 > 0:07:57have a chat and I decided to bring Muireann over with me. Molly Bloom.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59I thought, "She'll be the clincher."
0:07:59 > 0:08:04I wish some man or other would take me sometimes when he's there
0:08:04 > 0:08:07and kiss me in his arms.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10There's nothing like a kiss.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14Long and hot down to your soul.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16The real deal clincher was... Writers always multi-task,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19so I actually had to buy three pairs of jackets and two pairs of trousers
0:08:19 > 0:08:23in a very dodgy warehouse at the same time as discussing this.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25So, basically, the discussion, as I remember,
0:08:25 > 0:08:29consisted of who would direct the show, who would be in the show.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32"Did my bum look big in this? Does this jacket fit me?"
0:08:32 > 0:08:34The choice of jacket might have clinched it actually.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37Certain jackets I thought you looked right in.
0:08:37 > 0:08:38Actually, I signed the contract
0:08:38 > 0:08:40before I realised none of the jackets fitted,
0:08:40 > 0:08:44which was a bit of a drawback, but a contract's a contract.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47I wonder if Boylan was satisfied with me?
0:08:47 > 0:08:50He came somewhere, yes, I'm sure by his appetite.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54One thing I didn't like, though, his slapping my behind going away.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56I'm not a horse!
0:08:56 > 0:08:58When I played the Edinburgh Festival,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02it was the Chinese that picked it up cos there's almost like...
0:09:02 > 0:09:05It has to be a big play because it's a big story.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36Well, as you know, you're never a prophet in your own land
0:09:36 > 0:09:38and we're knocking on the doors of Dublin theatres
0:09:38 > 0:09:41to put on James Joyce and often finding that difficult
0:09:41 > 0:09:43until we were in the project eventually
0:09:43 > 0:09:46and then somebody from the other side of the world
0:09:46 > 0:09:48recognises something in that play
0:09:48 > 0:09:51that people more locally, closer to it, don't see.
0:10:17 > 0:10:18One reason why we were invited there
0:10:18 > 0:10:21was not only because this theatre company,
0:10:21 > 0:10:25this theatre director, Mr Yi, was enamoured by the production,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27but also he's very keen to promote
0:10:27 > 0:10:32a more contemporary style of theatre performance in China
0:10:32 > 0:10:35and they don't have that style of theatre there.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40By Jesus, I'll crucify that bloody Jew, Mam, so I will.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45Are you not happy in your home, you poor naughty boy?
0:10:45 > 0:10:48Who's getting it on?
0:10:48 > 0:10:51Tremblin' calves.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55Raw head and bloody bones.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11BELL TOLLS
0:11:52 > 0:11:55He's a cultured all round man is Bloom.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57He's not your common or garden.
0:11:57 > 0:11:59There's a touch of the artist about old Bloom.
0:11:59 > 0:12:05Or, er, Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07The other. More in Molly's line.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11"Her mouth glued on his in a voluptuous kiss,
0:12:11 > 0:12:15"while his hands felt for the opulent curves
0:12:15 > 0:12:18"inside her deshabille."
0:12:18 > 0:12:22I'll take this one. Sweet Cecile. It's a good one.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25My starting point was that the great love of Joyce's life,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28Nora Barnacle, used to complain that he used to
0:12:28 > 0:12:31keep her awake at night laughing as he stayed up writing it,
0:12:31 > 0:12:36and there is a huge amount of humour and humanity, not just belly laughs
0:12:36 > 0:12:40but with the humour of common humanity floating around the book.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44Put the port and the perfume in the basket first.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45Then the fruit on top.
0:12:45 > 0:12:48Yes, Mr Boylan. HE CHUCKLES INDULGENTLY
0:12:48 > 0:12:50Send it at once by tram.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Mrs Molly Bloom, 7 Eccles Street.
0:12:54 > 0:12:56It's, er...
0:12:56 > 0:12:58It's for an invalid.
0:12:58 > 0:13:03Yes, Mr Boylan. I will, sir. Oh...
0:13:03 > 0:13:05That for me?
0:13:05 > 0:13:07Yes, Mr Boylan. HE CHUCKLES
0:13:07 > 0:13:11The way you staged it in this, sort of, theatrical set
0:13:11 > 0:13:13where all these possibilities were there
0:13:13 > 0:13:14allowed that humour to come out
0:13:14 > 0:13:16and allowed the audience, too, to come in,
0:13:16 > 0:13:20and it wasn't to turn Ulysses into a comedy but it was to take away
0:13:20 > 0:13:23that whole intimidation... intimidating barrier around it
0:13:23 > 0:13:26so that, you know, an audience would go away and say,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28"I want to go back and I want to read this book",
0:13:28 > 0:13:31which is one of the truest chronicles of the human condition
0:13:31 > 0:13:33written in the 20th century.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35It was my brother Henry. He is my double.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38I call Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40to give medical testimony on my behalf.
0:13:40 > 0:13:45Dr Bloom is bisexually abnormal. CRIES OF SHOCK
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Born out of bedlock, he is prematurely bald from self-abuse,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52perversely idealistic in consequence...
0:13:52 > 0:13:53That is rubbish.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55..and...has metal teeth.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00I declare him to be virago intacta.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03He showed me the video of the, er, Ulysses, erm,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07and then he asked me, "OK, how do you like it?"
0:14:07 > 0:14:09I said, "Oh, I like it so much."
0:14:09 > 0:14:12Sailed the Red Sea!
0:14:12 > 0:14:15China!
0:14:15 > 0:14:17The Dardanelles!
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Seeing icebergs aplenty.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24And then he said, erm, "OK, I'm bringing this show to China.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27"Would you like to translate a script?"
0:14:27 > 0:14:30I was, like, "Oh, my God, I'm so thrilled."
0:14:33 > 0:14:36Of course, the translation process was not easy.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39Everyone knows that Ulysses is difficult piece.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41Press! Press!
0:14:41 > 0:14:44Meet the gentlemen of the press!
0:14:44 > 0:14:48See Bloom become...
0:14:48 > 0:14:52This art, you see. "Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchants."
0:14:52 > 0:14:54He wants two crossed keys at the top like that
0:14:54 > 0:14:56and then the name, Alexander Keyes.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59Catches the eye, you see. The House of Keyes.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Have you the design? I could get it, but it'd need just a little
0:15:02 > 0:15:04bit in the paper calling attention to his shop.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09You know, the usual, er, high-class licensed premises. We can do that.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12Have him give us a three-month renewal.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14Difficult assignment for Bloom!
0:15:14 > 0:15:19I tried to, you know, erm, use the same length of the sentences
0:15:19 > 0:15:23and to have some rhyme out of it so that when you read it,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27you will feel the beautiful, you know, rhythm of the language.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30Oh, there's a word I want to ask you.
0:15:30 > 0:15:32Here. Metem...what?
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Metempsychosis. And who's he now that he's at home?
0:15:37 > 0:15:40It's from the Greek - the, er, transmigration of souls.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Oh, rocks! Tell us in plain words.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47"The monster Maffei flung his victim from him with an oath."
0:15:47 > 0:15:49Did you finish it? Yes.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51But there's nothing smutty in it.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Get us another one of those Paul de Kocks.
0:15:55 > 0:15:56And what was the reaction of, say,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58young Chinese theatre professionals to it?
0:15:58 > 0:16:00Er, they loved it.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11Fast scene changes? Ah, yes.
0:16:16 > 0:16:17OK. OK.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34Thank you.
0:16:34 > 0:16:40When you strip down, erm, the book to those three central characters
0:16:40 > 0:16:43and the relationship between Molly and Bloom,
0:16:43 > 0:16:45which has been destroyed...
0:16:45 > 0:16:50First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's in Terenure.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52Yellow and black lace she wore.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54Musical chairs...
0:16:54 > 0:16:57They're still together but it has been damaged by the loss of a child,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00the actual alienation of the young man
0:17:00 > 0:17:01who knows he must leave the city.
0:17:01 > 0:17:03It becomes a very universal story.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06It's a story that, at its core, could be set in China,
0:17:06 > 0:17:09could be set in Berlin, could be set anywhere,
0:17:09 > 0:17:12and it was very interesting to actually see it go off
0:17:12 > 0:17:15and be responded to by a Chinese audience.
0:17:17 > 0:17:19HE SPEAKS MANDARIN
0:17:19 > 0:17:21APPLAUSE
0:17:23 > 0:17:25Question-and-answer sessions afterwards,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27it was often commented how we went from one scene to the next.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46One thing I enjoy as a director is, erm,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50is making the scene changes part of the show, as it were,
0:17:50 > 0:17:52to maintain the dramatic tension.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55And, er, so there's lots of opportunities,
0:17:55 > 0:17:59and given the surreal nature of the piece anyway, er,
0:17:59 > 0:18:03the heightened sense of the novel, it was quite appropriate
0:18:03 > 0:18:06to...to have a sort of...a madness of scene changes.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14It was a challenge. I mean, how on earth do you stage all that?
0:18:14 > 0:18:16All these settings, you know -
0:18:16 > 0:18:20a bedroom, a pub, a newspaper office, a street,
0:18:20 > 0:18:25a brothel - all these constantly changing situations.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31Charlotte Lane, very young designer, er,
0:18:31 > 0:18:35never really designed anything here before, but she had an eye,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39I thought, you know, for real abs... surreal and visually dynamic work,
0:18:39 > 0:18:44and we talked for ages about how we can encapsulate that in one...thing.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49We thought, we must have the bed,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52but that can be other things as well.
0:18:52 > 0:18:54And then if we have a sense of clutter...
0:18:54 > 0:18:57MOLLY SINGS
0:18:59 > 0:19:01Dedalus!
0:19:01 > 0:19:04There's just a sense of place, really, that's all it is,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08but it's something the actors can be constantly moving around.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12Ooh! I beg your pardon.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15We have that vehicle, this... you know, the moving ladder,
0:19:15 > 0:19:18and I don't know how that came about in some ways, but that became
0:19:18 > 0:19:22incredibly important, to constantly have the energy of moving the stage.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25There was a priest down here two nights ago
0:19:25 > 0:19:27with his coat buttoned up.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30"You needn't try to hide", I says!
0:19:30 > 0:19:32Oh, I'm sure you're a spoiled priest.
0:19:32 > 0:19:34He is. A cardinal's son.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36Cardinal sin.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40I present His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42Primate of all Ireland.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45And the thing is that audiences, I mean,
0:19:45 > 0:19:47they always know where you are just by one tiny thing.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50Just by a tip of a hat or a slight gesture
0:19:50 > 0:19:52or an opening of a newspaper,
0:19:52 > 0:19:54suddenly you're in a different place.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57And old Bloom approaches the Ormond Hotel.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02Clean at last. Best value in Dublin. Sirens!
0:20:02 > 0:20:05'They say in football a home crowd can be like a 12th man
0:20:05 > 0:20:08'and Charlotte's set became'
0:20:08 > 0:20:12an extra character on that stage and really carried it and really enraptured the audience.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14The set itself charmed the audience.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17To me, as a director, the scene change is part of what's going on,
0:20:17 > 0:20:19and so it becomes part of the action
0:20:19 > 0:20:23rather than the lights coming down and moving the furniture about.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26I was just passing the time of day at Arbour Hill
0:20:26 > 0:20:28and be damned but who should I see?
0:20:28 > 0:20:32Only Joe Hynes off the Freeman's Journal.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34I think the fact there were no rules,
0:20:34 > 0:20:37that everything...anything goes basically, that was...
0:20:37 > 0:20:41That style of theatre where you don't have to adhere to any
0:20:41 > 0:20:43particular way and do whatever you want.
0:20:43 > 0:20:44Henry!
0:20:44 > 0:20:49Leopold! It is I, your Martha. Clear my name!
0:20:49 > 0:20:51Come to the station.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55No, no, worshipful master. Mistaken identity.
0:20:55 > 0:20:56Breach of promise!
0:20:56 > 0:21:00My real name is Peggy Griffin. He wrote that he was miserable.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03That was something that I think came across very forcibly and
0:21:03 > 0:21:05which the audiences I think were, you know, certainly...
0:21:05 > 0:21:07Cos we met with drama students afterwards,
0:21:07 > 0:21:10I gave a talk to drama students at a drama school,
0:21:10 > 0:21:13and that was something they really took on board, very much so, yeah.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19HE TRIES NOTES
0:21:22 > 0:21:23Seems all right.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27IN DALEK VOICE: You are a credit to your country, sir,
0:21:27 > 0:21:29that's what you are.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33I do. What do you think?
0:21:35 > 0:21:38What was the difference between playing it in China and
0:21:38 > 0:21:41playing it in Glasgow or Edinburgh or Dublin or Cork or Belfast?
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Er, well, the audience were Chinese!
0:21:44 > 0:21:47I think...I think, erm, we were expecting very quiet audiences,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49because we thought, er, they...
0:21:49 > 0:21:52It was simultaneous translation, which obviously an awful lot
0:21:52 > 0:21:54of the humour gets lost as a result of that.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56Also it takes longer to say something in Chinese
0:21:56 > 0:21:59than it does in English, so I was worried about
0:21:59 > 0:22:01the bits in the translation maybe losing step
0:22:01 > 0:22:03with what's being said on stage and so on.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07Er, and I think, to be fair, the translation didn't convey
0:22:07 > 0:22:09the humour in the same way that the tex...
0:22:09 > 0:22:10How could it, really?
0:22:10 > 0:22:14All the innuendo and the very colloquial dialogue and so on.
0:22:14 > 0:22:16But because, erm...
0:22:16 > 0:22:19That provided nonetheless a narrative,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22which was very important, er, and they...
0:22:22 > 0:22:25And the visually...and the physical animation of it I think was
0:22:25 > 0:22:27really what charmed them.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30Of course, they only knew him as well as I do.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35He's not natural, begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off me drawers.
0:22:35 > 0:22:40Of course, he's MAD on the subject of drawers,
0:22:40 > 0:22:44skeezing at those brazenfaced things on their bicycles
0:22:44 > 0:22:48with their skirts blowing UP to their navels!
0:22:49 > 0:22:53O Maria santissima he did look a fool,
0:22:53 > 0:22:55dreeping in the rain,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58beseeching me to lift my orange petticoat.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03So I lifted them a bit and I touched him on the trousers outside
0:23:03 > 0:23:06to keep him from doing worse, where it was too public!
0:23:06 > 0:23:09I was dying to find out was he circumcised,
0:23:09 > 0:23:11he was shaking like a jelly.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14They want to do everything too quick,
0:23:14 > 0:23:17take all the pleasure out if it.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29HE CALLS OUT IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:23:41 > 0:23:44So what's...what's this gear?
0:23:44 > 0:23:46I'll be stinking now.
0:23:48 > 0:23:53I'll have beetles on sticks and, er, chips on the side, please.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04Tickle my catastrophe!
0:24:04 > 0:24:08It is. It is a tickle my catastrophe.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11Molly would've liked one of those.
0:24:11 > 0:24:12Molly would've liked them. Yeah...
0:24:15 > 0:24:17What's green tea in Chinese?
0:24:17 > 0:24:19MAN TRANSLATES
0:24:19 > 0:24:23Because we have very different... many kinds of, yeah, green teas.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29Those are good. These are the superstars...of green tea.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32These are the rock stars of green tea!
0:24:32 > 0:24:33Just like megastars!
0:24:37 > 0:24:41Where did you go yesterday again? We went to the silk market.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45Mary was in her...in her own form of heaven, bartering.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48And would they be like... You'd offer, like, a euro,
0:24:48 > 0:24:50and they'd be like, "Aaaaahh!" Like freaking out.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52It was brilliant. "Me give you best price!"
0:24:52 > 0:24:55"Ah, you're breaking my heart!" Yeah, "Best price for lady."
0:24:55 > 0:24:58"Ah, lady! You're so beautiful!" They'd put it up with a calculator
0:24:58 > 0:25:00and you had to go, "Ah, no. No, no."
0:25:00 > 0:25:05And, "Ah, you're breaking my heart!" "Oh, no! I..."
0:25:05 > 0:25:08Oh, what was it somebody said to Stevie or something,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11"I've no money for ice cream!"
0:25:11 > 0:25:13Yeah, they really put it on.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16And then when you actually do do well, they don't do it with,
0:25:16 > 0:25:20like, great humility, it's like, "You won." Yeah! "You won."
0:25:20 > 0:25:23"You so clever, lady." That's the...
0:25:23 > 0:25:27But you're still paying over the odds. Course you are!
0:25:27 > 0:25:29They want to make you feel like you've really...
0:25:29 > 0:25:32You know you're paying over the odds. Of course you do.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35OK? Thank you.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39That'll be 50 dollar, nice lady. For you, special price.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
0:25:49 > 0:25:51Totally unrehearsed.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59Basket with red cover inside. Basket. There should be a stick.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05Music resonates throughout Ulysses.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08It obviously resonates in certain chapters that are built
0:26:08 > 0:26:09almost like a piece of music,
0:26:09 > 0:26:12but also singing and songs are perpetually there
0:26:12 > 0:26:14and they're repeated and they become motifs through it.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18# My girl's a Yorkshire girl
0:26:18 > 0:26:22# Yorkshire through and through
0:26:22 > 0:26:26# My girl's a Yorkshire girl
0:26:26 > 0:26:29# Eh, by gum, she's a champion... #
0:26:29 > 0:26:32What I loved about the production was that you seemed to, like,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35delve so much, so deeply into the music of the time
0:26:35 > 0:26:37and created a wonderful score around it.
0:26:37 > 0:26:39How did you make those choices, Andy?
0:26:39 > 0:26:43Well, I worked with Ross Brown, who composed and devised
0:26:43 > 0:26:46a lot of the music, and collaborated with him.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49I mean, as you say, some of it, you know, for example,
0:26:49 > 0:26:52Boylan and Molly Bloom were going to be singing La Ci Darem,
0:26:52 > 0:26:54and so...we sang that.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58Oh, Lord, I wanted to shout out all sorts of things,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01"fuck" or "shit" or anything at all!
0:27:01 > 0:27:06# Andiam! Andiam!
0:27:06 > 0:27:09# Andiam! #
0:27:09 > 0:27:11Let's ring it out!
0:27:11 > 0:27:14BOTH: # Andiam, andiam, mio bene
0:27:14 > 0:27:17# A ristorar le pene
0:27:17 > 0:27:22# D'un innocente amor. #
0:27:22 > 0:27:24Oh, my God.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27We've just done the song and they feel like it's really loud. Loud?!
0:27:27 > 0:27:30I'm sorry. So I just wondered if they wanted to do it again.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32You need to get a proper opera singer next time you're doing this.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36Oh, Lord, I wanted to shout out all sorts of things,
0:27:36 > 0:27:38"fuck" or "shit" or anything at all!
0:27:38 > 0:27:42# Andiam! Andiam!
0:27:42 > 0:27:47# Andiam!
0:27:47 > 0:27:50BOTH: # Andiam, andiam, mio bene
0:27:50 > 0:27:53# A ristorar le pene
0:27:53 > 0:27:58# D'un innocente amor. #
0:27:58 > 0:28:02And there were parts of Latin Mass and so on which we sang and so on.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07# O sanctissima
0:28:07 > 0:28:12# O piissima
0:28:12 > 0:28:23# Madre nostra, Maria! #
0:28:23 > 0:28:26What I didn't want to go down, though, was the road of
0:28:26 > 0:28:30fairly more conventional Irish music, cos I thought this is
0:28:30 > 0:28:31not a conventional piece,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34and you say the universality of the piece,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37and because the...this style of theatre was influenced by a lot of
0:28:37 > 0:28:42East European...I wanted that to be reflected in some of the music.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46AVANT-GARDE MUSIC PLAYS
0:28:46 > 0:28:52That mad scene-change music was very much me working with Ross to
0:28:52 > 0:28:57come up with things which just had a fairly wild edge to them.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03While at the same time having a period feel about them,
0:29:03 > 0:29:06it wasn't...it couldn't be placed as Irish.
0:30:03 > 0:30:05Thanks, Andy.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08I'll show you how this works.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11Line one. Well, you press "English" first.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13Military Museum...
0:30:13 > 0:30:18Which one are you pressing? I pressed line one. Sorry, sorry.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20I'll go back.
0:30:25 > 0:30:27Packed!
0:30:27 > 0:30:28I'll tell you a story.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31I went for a run around by the military museum
0:30:31 > 0:30:34where I was staying before, and I was going for just a jog,
0:30:34 > 0:30:36and as I was running past the military academy,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39the brass band were all out there - wonderful regalia -
0:30:39 > 0:30:41and they were just tuning up. Did they have trumpets?
0:30:41 > 0:30:44They had everything. And they were just tuning up, and listen,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47the first tune they played, do you know what it was?
0:30:47 > 0:30:49God Save The Queen. SHE LAUGHS
0:30:49 > 0:30:52Amazing. So, obviously, I was rooted to the spot. I couldn't move.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56They knew you were there. I'd like to think they saw me coming.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00Where are we going? We're going out. We're going out of the tube station.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09That sponger!
0:31:09 > 0:31:12Cursing that sponger's the lowest pits.
0:31:12 > 0:31:13That sponger was making free with me
0:31:13 > 0:31:15after the Glencree dinner.
0:31:15 > 0:31:16Coming back!
0:31:16 > 0:31:19There's nae room... SHE LAUGHS
0:31:22 > 0:31:23OK?
0:31:23 > 0:31:26Good. That's fine, that's good.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30It strikes me that the arrival here of Joyce's Ulysses comes as
0:31:30 > 0:31:34the culmination of quite a long history of his gradual
0:31:34 > 0:31:37reception and assimilation to this country's culture.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40It all began in 1922,
0:31:40 > 0:31:43when, soon after the initial publication in February of
0:31:43 > 0:31:46that year of Joyce's Ulysses in Paris,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49someone in China whose name remains unknown ordered ten copies
0:31:49 > 0:31:52of the book, and Joyce immediately responded in
0:31:52 > 0:31:55a letter to one of his friends, "Ten copies to Peking",
0:31:55 > 0:31:58very excited that it seemed that his book,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01which was having so much difficulties in getting
0:32:01 > 0:32:05published in Europe and had already been banned in America,
0:32:05 > 0:32:07was being received so positively elsewhere.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11I tried with a banana.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15But I was afraid it might break and get lost up me somewhere,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18because they once took something down out of
0:32:18 > 0:32:24a woman that was up there for years, covered in limesalts.
0:32:29 > 0:32:30LAUGHTER
0:32:31 > 0:32:36In 1979, the first translation is commissioned from an artist called
0:32:36 > 0:32:41Jin Di, and he sets to work with many qualms on this translation,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44which he thought was beyond him because the book was too long
0:32:44 > 0:32:45and too abstruse.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47He wasn't sure that he understood it and
0:32:47 > 0:32:51he had almost no access to any of the Western criticism that
0:32:51 > 0:32:52had been published.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56When he did, it was quite hard for him to come to terms with it,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58for many different reasons.
0:32:58 > 0:32:59But he took on the challenge,
0:32:59 > 0:33:05and in 1996 his translation came out in two volumes, and that point
0:33:05 > 0:33:10marks an important turning point in China's reception of Ulysses.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12The book turns out to be a bestseller,
0:33:12 > 0:33:15at least by the standards of Western literature in China.
0:33:15 > 0:33:21Murphy's the name. Sea dog! What might yours be?
0:33:21 > 0:33:27Dedalus. Do you know Simon Dedalus? I've heard of him. He's Irish.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31All Irish! All too Irish.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35And one of the things that I think Chinese people are most
0:33:35 > 0:33:38interested in about the book is this idea that Leopold Bloom
0:33:38 > 0:33:40is an everyman who encapsulates
0:33:40 > 0:33:43a kind of universal wisdom about how we should live.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47I resent violence or intolerance in any shape of form.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51A revolution must come on the due-instalments plan.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54All these wretched quarrels!
0:33:54 > 0:33:56It's supposed to be about honour and flags.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59It's money at the back of everything, greed and jealousy.
0:34:00 > 0:34:05They accuse Jews. Not a vestige of truth.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08Spain decayed when the Inquisition hounded them out,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11and England prospered when that ruffian Cromwell imported them,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14because they're practical.
0:34:14 > 0:34:16I'm as good an Irishman as him,
0:34:16 > 0:34:19and I want to see all classes and creeds being able to live well.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21Jin Di, the translator of Ulysses,
0:34:21 > 0:34:24likened the wisdom that could be derived from Leopold Bloom
0:34:24 > 0:34:28and his day-to-day thinking about his own problems
0:34:28 > 0:34:32as the kind of wisdom encapsulated in the writings of Confucius.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35HE CHANTS IN LATIN
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Makes him feel important to be prayed over in Latin.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48Father Coffey, with a belly on him like a poisoned pup.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51What swells him up that way?
0:34:51 > 0:34:54Must be an infernal lot of bad air around here.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57He must be fed up, shaking holy water over
0:34:57 > 0:35:02all the corpses they trot up, every mortal day a fresh batch -
0:35:02 > 0:35:07middle-aged men, children, women dead in childbirth,
0:35:07 > 0:35:11consumptive girls with little sparrows' breasts.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14He says Dignum is going to paradise. Hm!
0:35:14 > 0:35:16Well, he has to say something!
0:35:16 > 0:35:20From what I can tell, Chinese people are very interested in this idea
0:35:20 > 0:35:25that Leopold Bloom is a universal man to whom current audiences and
0:35:25 > 0:35:28future audiences will always be able to relate,
0:35:28 > 0:35:32and in this, their attitude to him and to his wife, Molly Bloom,
0:35:32 > 0:35:36and to the other characters in the book is really replaying
0:35:36 > 0:35:38the West's own reception of Ulysses.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42This is how people first found a foothold in the book,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46a way of making their way through its incredibly difficult maze of
0:35:46 > 0:35:50very confusing literary fabric was to find the human story, and that,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54it seems to me, is what's happening in this play as it's been adapted
0:35:54 > 0:35:57and the easiest way for the Chinese
0:35:57 > 0:36:00to begin to understand the other things that the book also does.
0:36:04 > 0:36:06Money in the biscuit tin.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11Yep. Drawer with three sizes of dustpan and a small brush. Yep.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17Three with seven pints, three empty pint glasses,
0:36:17 > 0:36:19one bottle of Coke...
0:36:19 > 0:36:24Boylan's comb, large coin, Boylan's top hat...
0:36:27 > 0:36:31Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36I expressly told you my tights must always be the right way, inside out!
0:36:36 > 0:36:38I don't do tights.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41It's so difficult! They're no' in my contract.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45Why don't you try a few voices? Let's think. Erm...
0:36:45 > 0:36:47Er...
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Let's just try the top of the Ormond Hotel scene. OK?
0:36:51 > 0:36:53Right?
0:36:53 > 0:36:56Am I awfully sunburnt, Miss Kennedy?
0:36:56 > 0:37:00I asked that old fogey in Boyd's for something for my skin.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03Miss Douce, don't remind me of him, for mercy's sake!
0:37:03 > 0:37:05For your what, Cissy? CISSY LAUGHS
0:37:05 > 0:37:07Imagine being married to a man like that.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11Oh, saints above, I'm all wet! Miss Douce, you horrid thing!
0:37:11 > 0:37:15Saying such things in the public bar of the Ormond Hotel!
0:37:15 > 0:37:19And what did the doctor order today, Mr Dedalus?
0:37:19 > 0:37:22Er, I'll have a small glass of water and a drop of whiskey.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24Certainly. OK?
0:37:24 > 0:37:26Good. Nice acoustics today.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28Now, I warn you that Shanghai,
0:37:28 > 0:37:32you had an awful lot of people who spoke English, you know,
0:37:32 > 0:37:33cos in Shanghai they do.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36In order to get work they all learn English.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Here, it's much more a Chinese-speaking community.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41At the same time, it is more of a theatre community.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44Now, I've been told that the language,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47because there was a lot of problems with the licence for everywhere
0:37:47 > 0:37:52outside of Beijing, some of the language was modified on the text.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56But that, apparently, will be put back now in Beijing. Whoa...!
0:37:56 > 0:37:57The language of Ulysses is...
0:37:57 > 0:38:01He was the first writer to really use the language of the street
0:38:01 > 0:38:03to really reflect how people spoke,
0:38:03 > 0:38:07and some of it is still quite shocking to a Dublin audience.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09Yeah. I saw people in Dublin leaving.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11I saw people looking pale.
0:38:11 > 0:38:13But what was the reaction in China
0:38:13 > 0:38:18to some of the more graphic aspects of Molly's speech
0:38:18 > 0:38:20and of the actual general plot itself?
0:38:20 > 0:38:23Well, we were obviously dependent on the translators being
0:38:23 > 0:38:28faithful to it, and I think they modified the language in
0:38:28 > 0:38:31certain cities where censorship was severer.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34If the fella you want isn't there, sometimes, for the Lord God,
0:38:34 > 0:38:36I was thinking would I go round there by the quays
0:38:36 > 0:38:38some dark evening, where nobody'd know me,
0:38:38 > 0:38:42and pick up a sailor off the sea that'd be hot on for it and
0:38:42 > 0:38:47not care a pin whose I was, only to do it off up on a gate somewhere,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50one of them wry-looking gypsies in Rathfarnham,
0:38:50 > 0:38:55that blaggard-looking fella with the fine eyes, peeling a switch,
0:38:55 > 0:38:59attack me in the dark and ride me up against a wall!
0:38:59 > 0:39:01We all know that Ulysses has a lot of description
0:39:01 > 0:39:04on the sexual activities and all that,
0:39:04 > 0:39:06and when I did the translation I was thinking
0:39:06 > 0:39:09whether I should put it sort of in a milder way, you know,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12to make sure that the audience would take it.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16YES!
0:39:16 > 0:39:20Because he must've come three or four times with that tremendous,
0:39:20 > 0:39:23big, red brute of a thing he has.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28Though his nose is not so big.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32It's also OK, because people are not used to discuss these kind of
0:39:32 > 0:39:35topics in a public place, like in a theatre house,
0:39:35 > 0:39:40but this is Ulysses, and we all know that it is a great piece
0:39:40 > 0:39:42we should at least learn to appreciate.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46After my hours of dressing and perfuming,
0:39:46 > 0:39:51it was like some kind of a thick crowbar standing all the time.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55He must have eaten oysters. He was in great singing voice!
0:39:55 > 0:40:00No, I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of
0:40:00 > 0:40:03that to make you feel full up!
0:40:03 > 0:40:06He must have eaten a whole sheep after.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09What's the idea of making us like that with
0:40:09 > 0:40:13a big HOLE in the middle, like a stallion driving it up into you?
0:40:13 > 0:40:16Because that's all they want out of you.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19In Beijing, it was much more exactly as it should have been,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22and they were proud of the fact that this contemporary theatre
0:40:22 > 0:40:25company had invited us over and the contemporary audiences
0:40:25 > 0:40:29were coming there in Beijing and wanted to see it as it should be.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33But obviously, things get lost in translation, but, yeah,
0:40:33 > 0:40:36I mean, certainly explicit moments and masturbation
0:40:36 > 0:40:40with the paper popping out of a gun and all these type of things
0:40:40 > 0:40:41always got a laugh.
0:40:41 > 0:40:43Everyone shouted to look,
0:40:43 > 0:40:48and something queer was flying about through the air,
0:40:48 > 0:40:51a soft thing, to and fro.
0:40:51 > 0:40:59A long Roman candle over the church, up and up, almost out of sight.
0:40:59 > 0:41:00Ahhh...!
0:41:00 > 0:41:03So that she had to lean back more.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06And you could see her other things, too!
0:41:06 > 0:41:09A full view, like no-one ever,
0:41:09 > 0:41:12and then a rocket burst and it was like...
0:41:12 > 0:41:14EXPLOSION
0:41:14 > 0:41:15SHE YELLS
0:41:15 > 0:41:20Everyone cried in raptures as it gushed out -
0:41:20 > 0:41:26a stream of rain, gold, hair, threads, falling with golden...
0:41:26 > 0:41:29Oh, so lovely!
0:41:29 > 0:41:32I think things are rapidly changing in China.
0:41:32 > 0:41:36I think there is nonetheless a certain modesty, by all means,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39and certainly there were people who were quite -
0:41:39 > 0:41:42even young people - who were quite embarrassed.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46You could see in the audience they were quite embarrassed by
0:41:46 > 0:41:48certain things, more the physical...
0:41:48 > 0:41:53Molly writhing about the bed and so on and this type of thing.
0:41:53 > 0:41:54But, I mean, nobody walked out.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58I like my bed.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03Judging from the audience that we have attracted so far,
0:42:03 > 0:42:05it is an interesting phenomenon.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09We just realised that we've attracted more intellectuals
0:42:09 > 0:42:11than theatre people, actually.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15And we speculated one reason might have been
0:42:15 > 0:42:18that it's James Joyce, it's Ulysses.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21Not too many people will have been familiar with it,
0:42:21 > 0:42:26will have read it before they had come to the production.
0:42:26 > 0:42:27APPLAUSE
0:42:29 > 0:42:32I think this was really quite difficult for someone who
0:42:32 > 0:42:33hasn't read the book to follow,
0:42:33 > 0:42:35but the book is really difficult to follow,
0:42:35 > 0:42:38so maybe in that sense it's doing the right kind of thing.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42I've never read the book, and especially the beginning part,
0:42:42 > 0:42:43the first part of this play,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46it's really hard to comprehend what's going on!
0:42:46 > 0:42:52Yeah. But I find that the acting is fantastic, and it's fascinating
0:42:52 > 0:42:57that these people, they can play so many parts at the same time
0:42:57 > 0:42:59in a single play.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03I wonder whether you've got a sense of what the book is about from this.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07Well, as I've said, the second part of the play,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10it's a little bit easier to understand after your
0:43:10 > 0:43:12explanation during the interval time.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15I will definitely read the book after this play. Yeah.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21'There was one city, unfortunately, that didn't give a licence for it,
0:43:21 > 0:43:24'Nanjing, but they're quite a conservative old city, apparently.'
0:43:24 > 0:43:27'Was that based on the viewing of the...?'
0:43:27 > 0:43:29'That's right, yeah. That must have been it, yeah.
0:43:29 > 0:43:33'But the thing is that I always kept telling myself,
0:43:33 > 0:43:36'every single word in that play was from James Joyce, as you say,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39'and the fact is, the book itself, unedited,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42'you can buy in Chinese in a bookshop in China.
0:43:42 > 0:43:43'So if they've got the books on sale,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46'why can't they have the theatre piece on stage?'
0:43:56 > 0:44:00Don't tell anyone! It's a secret. Onto the cart, now!
0:44:00 > 0:44:01Stand us a drink yerself,
0:44:01 > 0:44:05and your pockets hanging with gold and silver!
0:44:05 > 0:44:08There's a Jew for yer! Cute as a shithouse rat.
0:44:08 > 0:44:14Jew! Jew! Three cheers for Israel!
0:44:14 > 0:44:17Bloom goes to a pub in Little Britain Street,
0:44:17 > 0:44:21and there he meets the Cyclops, he meets the citizen,
0:44:21 > 0:44:25he meets the most bigoted, biased bollocks of an Irish Republican
0:44:25 > 0:44:27you could ever meet.
0:44:27 > 0:44:31Bloom is a Jew, Bloom is not Irish, and actually he has a row,
0:44:31 > 0:44:33because Bloom uses logic
0:44:33 > 0:44:38and all those things that are quite useless in any pub argument.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40And Karl Marx. And Spinosa.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43And the Saviour was a Jew, and his father was a Jew. Your God...
0:44:43 > 0:44:47We have no father. That'll do, now. God was a Jew! Your God was a Jew!
0:44:47 > 0:44:49Christ was a Jew, like me!
0:44:49 > 0:44:52By Jesus, I'll crucify the bloody Jew!
0:44:52 > 0:44:53I'll kill him! Get off me!
0:44:53 > 0:44:55I'll kill him! I'll kill him!
0:44:57 > 0:44:59It's been extraordinary, actually.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02I think I maybe told you that in Shanghai, on the second day,
0:45:02 > 0:45:04when they released tickets...
0:45:04 > 0:45:06If they had any returns,
0:45:06 > 0:45:08any spare tickets on the day of the show itself,
0:45:08 > 0:45:10they would sell them for only a fiver each.
0:45:10 > 0:45:13And people were queuing up from 4:30 in the morning.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16On the second day of Shanghai.
0:45:16 > 0:45:20Here, of course, completely sold out as well.
0:45:20 > 0:45:22I have asked, to make a special request
0:45:22 > 0:45:25for mobile phones to be switched off, generally switched off.
0:45:25 > 0:45:26That is made anyway.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28But then people just... It's a habit.
0:45:28 > 0:45:30It's not a question of taking a phone call,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33it's having to sit in there flicking through things.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38There's a different culture in Chinese audiences which,
0:45:38 > 0:45:41actually, I found frustrating at times.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44They are not used to sitting quietly for a couple of hours.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46Chinese Theatre has come through Chinese opera
0:45:46 > 0:45:49which lasts for ten hours and people come in and out.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53Who was the letter from? Boylan, he's coming at four.
0:45:53 > 0:45:55He is bringing the programme.
0:45:55 > 0:45:57What time is Dignum's funeral?
0:45:57 > 0:46:02Every theatre, we had people coming in late, people on their phones...
0:46:03 > 0:46:07And these are people who spent weeks trying to get tickets for it.
0:46:07 > 0:46:09You would think they'd be... But it's just...
0:46:09 > 0:46:10They didn't understand that no,
0:46:10 > 0:46:12you're meant to sit absolutely silent.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15APPLAUSE
0:46:24 > 0:46:27THEY CHUCKLE
0:46:27 > 0:46:32That, do you think that will work? In terms of timing?
0:46:32 > 0:46:37Mr Yi decided, in addition to inviting Ulysses to come to China
0:46:37 > 0:46:42to do a tour, also to invite Andy to come to Beijing and
0:46:42 > 0:46:47engage in a collaborative project with local Chinese actors.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52And it means that Nora can say her lines to you there. Directly.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54HE TRANSLATES
0:46:54 > 0:46:57I was working with a group of young Chinese actors and to be honest,
0:46:57 > 0:46:59young Chinese actors are no different
0:46:59 > 0:47:01from young Scottish actors.
0:47:01 > 0:47:03Or actors from any other part of the world.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07They have the same self-doubt, the same arrogance, sometimes.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09You can tell who can act and who can't.
0:47:09 > 0:47:12They are also totally committed to what they want to achieve
0:47:12 > 0:47:16on stage and they know what the disciplines are.
0:47:16 > 0:47:20You know, Andy looks fierce, for the Chinese eye, at least.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22He looks very intense.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26Look. Telling them about the light.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29And then going off. It'll just make it...
0:47:29 > 0:47:31Adds to the urgency of it, I think.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34HE TRANSLATES
0:47:35 > 0:47:39Our colleagues in the West, in the theatre community,
0:47:39 > 0:47:45should keep in mind that auditions are a fairly rare phenomenon, here.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49We cast our characters, our actors and actresses in a different way.
0:47:49 > 0:47:50Not through open auditions,
0:47:50 > 0:47:53but mostly through personal relationships.
0:47:53 > 0:47:55But for Andy, they are not familiar.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58They don't have any measure of familiarity with how actors work
0:47:58 > 0:48:01and what sort of actors we have here.
0:48:01 > 0:48:02Things of that sort.
0:48:02 > 0:48:04So we held open auditions.
0:48:04 > 0:48:08Those were two exhausting days for Andy.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10THEY SPEAK IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:48:12 > 0:48:15'What they weren't familiar with was my particular style of performance.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19'But that's no different from some British actors, to be honest.'
0:48:19 > 0:48:21We need to compensate for the fact that suddenly
0:48:21 > 0:48:22it's coming from back there...
0:48:22 > 0:48:25'Once they realised what I wanted to do with it,
0:48:25 > 0:48:28'where I wanted to take the play, once they could say how it was
0:48:28 > 0:48:32'evolving, then they were totally on board and they committed in it.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35'And by the end of that process, I was working with them in exactly
0:48:35 > 0:48:39'the same way as I would be working with a group of British actors.'
0:48:39 > 0:48:41When they walk... The thing of them...
0:48:41 > 0:48:43The acting tradition here is very...
0:48:43 > 0:48:47Tends towards realism and naturalism.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49So, given the style of theatre that Andy is in love with,
0:48:49 > 0:48:55that Andy has been doing, I guess for most of his life, um...
0:48:55 > 0:48:59that was the obstacle that we had to...that we had to overcome.
0:48:59 > 0:49:00In Andy's words,
0:49:00 > 0:49:04that required a leap of faith on the part of the actors.
0:49:04 > 0:49:09They had to really have that strong sense of belief in Andy's style,
0:49:09 > 0:49:12in this end product that we're going to see
0:49:12 > 0:49:13at the end of the three-week process.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18So...so you have it there and then as soon as you move,
0:49:18 > 0:49:21like on the kiss, then you're straight away into it.
0:49:21 > 0:49:22OK.
0:49:50 > 0:49:53When Shing gets to there, if you walk...
0:49:53 > 0:49:55Andy was constantly telling everybody
0:49:55 > 0:49:58to feel free to contribute, this isn't...
0:49:58 > 0:49:59This is a devised piece.
0:49:59 > 0:50:04And by the way, devising is a relatively new concept here, too.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07We have always been used to working in a way
0:50:07 > 0:50:09where there is a set script.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12You may add or subtract from an existing script,
0:50:12 > 0:50:13but the script is everything.
0:50:15 > 0:50:17'I really enjoyed working with that Chinese cast.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22'I had to work through a translator, but actually, after a while,
0:50:22 > 0:50:25'you are able to communicate very quickly and visually what you
0:50:25 > 0:50:28'want to achieve a lot of the time without necessarily having to
0:50:28 > 0:50:30'describe it through the language.'
0:50:30 > 0:50:34ANDY GIVES DIRECTIONS
0:50:34 > 0:50:38I was amazed with how sensitive Andy is to language.
0:50:38 > 0:50:44There is a scene where Joyce is passionately pursuing Nora Barnacle
0:50:44 > 0:50:48and Nora, having been emotionally exhausted on that particular night,
0:50:48 > 0:50:52says, "Well, no, not tonight. Look at how drunk you are."
0:50:52 > 0:50:54And Joyce says, "Well, well."
0:50:54 > 0:50:56So, in translation that is, "Hao-ba, hao-ba."
0:50:56 > 0:50:58Andy picks that up, "Hao-ba, hao-ba",
0:50:58 > 0:51:00and turns that into a joke
0:51:00 > 0:51:05that would be delivered almost every day on particular occasions.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07Hao-ba, hao-ba. HE CHUCKLES
0:51:07 > 0:51:11When everybody's tired, for example, and just begging for a break...
0:51:11 > 0:51:14You know, Andy insists that you have to earn your break
0:51:14 > 0:51:16on the part of actors.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19And then he goes, "Hao-ba, hao-ba, let's have a break."
0:51:19 > 0:51:22THEY LAUGH
0:51:22 > 0:51:25I don't think he would have any trouble trying to exhaust people.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29For the best results, for the best stage presentation.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31Unless you want... Unless you want to work further?
0:51:31 > 0:51:33HE TRANSLATES
0:51:34 > 0:51:38LAUGHTER
0:51:46 > 0:51:49SHE SINGS IN OPERATIC STYLE
0:51:57 > 0:52:03THEY SPEAK MANDARIN
0:52:26 > 0:52:29APPLAUSE
0:52:35 > 0:52:40Well, you all move beautifully and the opera singer...!
0:52:40 > 0:52:42Yeah, I don't want her to come to see Ulysses,
0:52:42 > 0:52:45because I have to sing and I'm not an opera singer!
0:52:45 > 0:52:48We have no Chinese, but we knew exactly what was happening
0:52:48 > 0:52:50in your head all the time.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53It was really, really good. Well done! Congratulations.
0:52:53 > 0:52:54I will go ...
0:52:54 > 0:52:56SHE MIMES
0:52:56 > 0:52:59And you can sing behind me! We can try. Yeah.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02Andy! For you.
0:53:02 > 0:53:03For me? Yes. Oh, goodness.
0:53:03 > 0:53:04Thank you.
0:53:04 > 0:53:05You're very kind.
0:53:05 > 0:53:06Thank you very much.
0:53:06 > 0:53:08Beautiful, yes.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11Thank you. Sorry, we have to change.
0:53:11 > 0:53:12Back to the hotel.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22I thought it was brilliant to experience
0:53:22 > 0:53:24all the very different audiences.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27Yeah, they were very different. Because people say,
0:53:27 > 0:53:28"It's going to be so different,
0:53:28 > 0:53:31"Chinese audiences are going to be so different.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34"They're going to clap slowly,
0:53:34 > 0:53:38"they're going to be messing with their phones all the time."
0:53:38 > 0:53:40It's just a different culture, and stuff.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43But I think it's a different culture in every city.
0:53:43 > 0:53:48I did...I suppose I didn't quite take on board until Beijing the pace
0:53:48 > 0:53:50that people take to read subtitles.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52And it really affects the playing of things.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55And so, in certain parts, I can definitely feel
0:53:55 > 0:54:00when they're still reading and so, without kind of holding the pace up,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03you have to kind of time it and allow them the time to read it
0:54:03 > 0:54:07but at the same time, the time to visually take on board
0:54:07 > 0:54:08what is going on.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12And, yeah, I'd say I only really got into my stride in Beijing
0:54:12 > 0:54:13at working that out.
0:54:17 > 0:54:18It's stuffy here.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22You just come with me and talk things over.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26The thing is to walk and you'll feel a different man.
0:54:26 > 0:54:27It's not far.
0:54:27 > 0:54:28Lean on me.
0:54:28 > 0:54:30Yes.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35My wife would have the greatest pleasure
0:54:35 > 0:54:37in making your acquaintance.
0:54:38 > 0:54:39Come.
0:54:42 > 0:54:46Everybody who watched that piece who was close to it, for example,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49doing the translation or the technicians and so on,
0:54:49 > 0:54:50that we were working with,
0:54:50 > 0:54:54they always got upset at the last piece,
0:54:54 > 0:54:56Molly's soliloquy,
0:54:56 > 0:55:02when she talked particularly about the funeral and the death of Rudy.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04That was 11 years ago now.
0:55:06 > 0:55:08I was in mourning.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12Yes, Rudy would be 11.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17Oh, what was the good in going into mourning for what was neither
0:55:17 > 0:55:20one thing nor the other?
0:55:20 > 0:55:23The first cry was enough for me.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25I heard the death watch, too.
0:55:27 > 0:55:29He liked me, too. I remember.
0:55:31 > 0:55:32It wasn't my fault!
0:55:35 > 0:55:37But I knew well I'd never have another.
0:55:38 > 0:55:40Our first death.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44We were never the same since.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49And then, of course, her talking about her meeting her first love
0:55:49 > 0:55:50with Bloom and so on,
0:55:50 > 0:55:53under the Moorish wall and all that...
0:55:53 > 0:55:57And the perfume, the smell of the flowers.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00And rose gardens!
0:56:00 > 0:56:03Jasmine and geraniums
0:56:03 > 0:56:06and Gibraltar as a girl
0:56:06 > 0:56:08where I was a flower of the mountain.
0:56:10 > 0:56:11Yes!
0:56:12 > 0:56:17When I put a rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used to...
0:56:18 > 0:56:19Yes...
0:56:19 > 0:56:22And how he kissed me under the Moorish wall
0:56:22 > 0:56:25and I thought, well...
0:56:27 > 0:56:29..as well him as another.
0:56:31 > 0:56:36And then I asked him with my eyes, to ask again,
0:56:36 > 0:56:37yes.
0:56:37 > 0:56:41And then he asked me, would I?
0:56:41 > 0:56:45Yes, to say yes, my mountain flower.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50And first I put my arms around him.
0:56:50 > 0:56:51Yes,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts.
0:56:55 > 0:56:57Oh, perfume.
0:56:57 > 0:57:02Yes, and his heart was going like mad and yes, I said yes, I will!
0:57:04 > 0:57:05Yes!
0:57:11 > 0:57:13It is so beautiful, it always moved that audience
0:57:13 > 0:57:16and that's the beauty of the piece, I think, really.
0:57:16 > 0:57:20Those sexual sections of the soliloquy will be contemporary
0:57:20 > 0:57:21in 200 years' time
0:57:21 > 0:57:23because they are rooted so much in the human condition.
0:57:23 > 0:57:27They'll be as beautiful in 200 years' time and also they'll be
0:57:27 > 0:57:29as shocking in 200 years' time.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32That's what I think! They'll never lose that.
0:57:32 > 0:57:34APPLAUSE
0:57:48 > 0:57:51So, the Tron Theatre's tour of China.
0:57:51 > 0:57:54Three weeks on the road, and 14,000 miles covered,
0:57:54 > 0:57:57playing to packed houses everywhere.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00A Journey Round James Joyce, performed in Mandarin,
0:58:00 > 0:58:03enjoyed a similar experience.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06But what meant most to me was the age of our Chinese audience -
0:58:06 > 0:58:09mainly young people, wanting to hear the words
0:58:09 > 0:58:12of this icon of Western literature,
0:58:12 > 0:58:13James Joyce.
0:58:43 > 0:58:47It's nice to see you again but I... I'm still worried that
0:58:47 > 0:58:51in the time you've been away you've never resolved that anger,
0:58:51 > 0:58:55that...that chaos inside you, that need for destruction.
0:59:08 > 0:59:09We've got a mix for that.
0:59:09 > 0:59:10BOTH: Ya!