It is quite possible the idea of Court Theatre producing JAMES JOYCE’S THE DEAD first came to be on the evening when Artistic Director Charlie Newell and I attended a performance of the musical on Broadway a couple seasons ago. It is just as likely the idea originated in Charlie’s college literature class when he studied Joyce, or in New York City in the 80’s when some of his friends produced a modest-sized show based on Dubliners. Throw in Charlie’s fondness for the film version of THE DEAD with Anjelica Huston, and one can easily connect the James Joyce dots in Charlie’s life.

One might also suggest Charlie began his journey with THE DEAD at his mother’s memorable holiday parties that she hosts for family and friends each Christmas. “Even in the years when I was having my greatest emotional challenges with my mother, I found myself showing up for those parties. We have a need to attend these family and community gatherings. It helps us to find our place in our own lives. We see ourselves and our [life] journeys—sometimes more clearly—through the life stories of the friends and family members who show up at the parties each year.”

“We keep track of time through the aging and the coupling, births and deaths of our party guests. And we sometimes find ourselves talking about the most intimate of details to the friends that we see only once a year.”

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Set in James Joyce’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century Dublin during the Christmas holiday, Richard Nelson’s musical adaptation of THE DEAD is a hauntingly tender and emotionally complex story of an annual gathering of old friends and family. On the 30th anniversary of the Morkan’s holiday festivities, three relatives (Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and their niece Mary Jane) host an evening filled with food, stories, memories and music. Among the guests are the Morkan’s nephew Gabriel Conroy and his wife, Gretta (played by the real husband-wife team of John Reeger and Paula Scrofano in Court’s production). Gabriel doubles as the story’s narrator and shares a deeply personal epiphany at the story’s end, as he realizes what it means to accept the pain of being “alone,” and yet together, with his wife, Gretta.

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“Every time I read THE DEAD I interpret something different in it.”

When Charlie met with the musical’s adaptor in New York City last year, one of the first pearls Richard Nelson shared was that THE DEAD “is a Chekhov play where people sing.” Immediately, Charlie compared the breadth of life compressed underneath Chekhov’s words with the way in which Joyce’s story is compressed between the musical numbers in Nelson’s adaptation. In all of Chekhov’s work, the characters struggle with change. [As audience members,] we see both how little has changed, as well as how very much changes in the time between the monumental family gatherings.

Even in the “Broadway barn” of the Belasco Theatre in New York City, Charlie connected with “the aspiration of [the musical adaptation of] THE DEAD and, in particular, the use of the music to further Joyce’s intimate family story-telling.” It was a different experience than most of the musicals he had attended on Broadway. For once, it wasn’t about just selling the songs but rather an attempt to magnify the emotional rawness of the original James Joyce’s text through the addition of Irish melodies and lyrics.

Charlie embraces “the music in THE DEAD as a great opportunity for release.” Irish singing, dancing and instrumental playing fill the Morkan’s holiday celebration with cultural heritage and an expression of community.

While experiencing THE DEAD at the Belasco Theatre, Charlie began to imagine the production in Court Theatre’s intimate performance space. He thought of the community of great, classically-trained actors living and working in Chicago who are also experienced musical theatre performers. Charlie saw an opportunity to achieve the emotionally engaging story in THE DEAD and to share in an up-close way the complexity of the Morkan family relationships with each individual patron at Court. It was the potential of what THE DEAD could mean for Court’s artists and audiences and what Court could mean for the musical’s “second generation of production”—the regional life of the piece after NYC—that kept the idea growing for him and Court.

“I feel as an artistic leader that I have to have a great personal commitment to everything we produce at Court Theatre. And then I get to the specific moment when I ask the question: Am I the director that should lead the realization of the artistic potential?”

During the season planning process, Charlie went through the logistical and artistic journey of trying to match the right director with THE DEAD. When several possibilities fell through, Charlie re-visited Joyce’s original short story and found a particular moment in the text that touched him so deeply that he couldn’t stop weeping. He wondered what that was about.

By spending considerably more time with both the musical and the short story, Charlie re-discovered the layers of meaning and the potential range of human response that is incorporated in every page of Joyce’s short story. He also recognized the Chekhovian-world in Joyce. Similarly to Chekhov’s greatest works, THE DEAD offers an opportunity to step out of our lives, and a place to discover something new within each of us. What is perhaps most exciting about THE DEAD is that everyone in the audience will have their own personal response to the material. Depending on where you are in your life journey, you will experience the Morkan family gathering in a uniquely defined way—just as Charlie has experienced each time anew and, in a deeply personal way, his mother’s holiday gatherings, Joyce’s short story and Richard Nelson’s musical adaptation. And in that way the idea just keeps growing.