James Joyce’s The Useless in a dramatised studying from Niamh Cusack with music from The Fourth Choir that underscored the emotional drama

The Useless – Niamh Cusack, The Fourth Choir, Jamie Powe – Wilton’s Music Corridor (Photograph: Kathleen Holman)

The Useless: James Joyce, Sarah MacDonald, Rhona Clarke, Robert Parsons, Bellini, Aine Mallon, Joanna Marsh, Samuel Barber, Healey Willan, Bo Holten; Niamh Cusack, The Fourth Choir, Jamie Powe, Seamus Rea; Wilton’s Music Corridor
Reviewed 14 January 2025

The marginally unlikely mixture of Joyce’s masterly lengthy short-story and music from Robert Parsons to Healey Willan and Samuel Barber to Joanna Marsh and Bo Holten proved a surprisingly efficient synthesis, creating a fascinating theatrical expertise, not fairly dramatic studying and never fairly musical therapy.

James Joyce’s The Useless, the ultimate quick story in his 1914 assortment Dubliners may appear a considerably unlikely inspiration for musical therapy, nevertheless it has impressed a couple of dramatic adaptation together with a Broadway musical. Music does, in truth, play an necessary half within the story. The primary half depicts a Dublin social gathering which appears an amusing examination of Irish identification, however a folksong The Lass of Aughrim raises such highly effective reminiscences and feelings within the hero, Gabriel Conroy’s spouse, Gretta, that the second half of the story the place Gabriel and Gretta Conroy retire to a lodge, goes in a completely stunning path. The story ends with Gabriel watching the snow and contemplating the position of the useless in individuals’s lives – “His soul swooned slowly, as he heard the snow falling faintly by the universe, and faintly falling, just like the descent of their final finish, upon all of the residing and the useless”.

On Tuesday 14 January 2025, The Fourth Choir, musical director Jamie Powe, introduced a dramatised studying of James Joyce’s The Useless at Wilton’s Music Corridor, with actor Niamh Cusack. The work was tailored and directed by Séamus Rea, and developed in collaboration with Jamie Powe, with lighting by Man Hoare.

The Useless – Niamh Cusack, The Fourth Choir, Jamie Powe – Wilton’s Music Corridor (Photograph: Kathleen Holman)

The consequence was surprisingly participating and thought-provoking, a dramatised studying of The Useless interspersed with music that generally referenced the story and generally merely heightened the environment. 

There are musical references within the story (Joyce was himself extremely musically literate), starting from the track sung by considered one of Gabriel Conroy’s aunts, to recollections of nice opera performances to the singing of The Lass of Aughrim. However the collection of music carried out by The Fourth Choir was wider than this, we had music by Sarah MacDonald, Rhona Clarke, Robert Parsons, Bellini, Aine Mallon, Joanna Marsh, Samuel Barber, Healey Willan, Bo Holten and James Joyce himself, plus people songs organized by Jamie Powe.

A lot of the music was there to conjure environment and heighten feelings. In order that the opening quantity, Like Snow in Winter (Sarah MacDonald’s setting of R.S. Thomas), with its fulfilling and extremely efficient tonal modernisms, had little musical or textual hyperlink to the story however created the suitable emotional environment. The perky carol on a Medieval textual content by Rhona Clarke was a barely unlikely evocation of the quadrilles talked about within the story, however the musical adaptation averted this kind of literalism. Maybe properly, as a result of the one second when music and story mixed was the evocation of the Italian opera, once we had movie footage of Maria Callas after which an uneasy mixture of recorded sound and stay choir in an excerpt from Casta Diva from Bellini’s Norma.

Robert Parson’s Ave Maria and Aine Mallon’s Dum Transisset Sabbatum had been there to provide the spiritual setting required. The early a part of the story could be very concerned in each faith (there’s one sole Protestant on the social gathering, and far discuss of the Pope), and Irish nationalism, as at one level a partygoer accuses Gabriel Conroy of being a West Briton. The social gathering ended with two folksong preparations by Jamie Powe, The Lass of Aughrim (with a effective solo from Gareth Moss) and The Parting Glass.

The Useless – Niamh Cusack, The Fourth Choir, Jamie Powe – Wilton’s Music Corridor (Photograph: Kathleen Holman)

For the second half, issues had been slightly extra conceptual as we had been now within the lodge room with Gabriel and Gretta Conroy, the story concentrating on Gabriel’s ideas. Joanna Marsh’s In Winter’s Home (setting a textual content by Jane Draycott) made some extremely efficient scene setting, while Samuel Barber’s James Stephens setting, The Coolin, introduced a extremely efficient Irish really feel to the music. The remaining items had been there to focus on the temper, as Gretta narrates her teenage love affair with the younger man who used to sing The Lass of Aughrim, who died tragically younger, after which Gabriel’s ideas roam free. James Joyce’s personal Bid Adieu was given in a extremely efficient association by Edmund Pendleton and Jamie Powe, however the heavy lifting was completed by Healey Willan’s Longfellow setting, The Useless and eventually Bo Holten’s First Snow which was at first used as underscore to Niamh Cusack’s studying of the ultimate traces of the story, shading the presentation into true melodrama for the primary time.

Mixing music and spoken phrase is difficult, as a result of our minds are attuned to registering the textual content above the musical materials, however right here the stability felt proper. I’ve to admit that I used to be considerably unsure of the idea at first, and an annoying a part of my mind needed the music to stick to a kind of literalism that in all probability wouldn’t have labored as properly. However the performers created a extremely efficient synthesis, Niamh Cusack was a splendidly participating but additionally a extremely sympathetic performer, you by no means felt that the choral gadgets had been interrupting her, however had been a pure a part of the move. The choir sang admirably and successfully, making us factor concerning the music and its position within the drama slightly than worrying about particulars of the efficiency.

The Useless – Niamh Cusack, The Fourth Choir, Jamie Powe – Wilton’s Music Corridor (Photograph: Kathleen Holman)