| The MAP Theater Presents Rare Revival of EXILES by James Joyce, Directed by Zachary Elkind, Feb 26 - Mar 15 | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 03:54 pm EST 01/31/25 | |
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| THE MAP THEATER PRESENTS RARE REVIVAL OF EXILES BY JAMES JOYCE, FEBRUARY 26 – MARCH 15 AT THE JEFFREY AND PAULA GURAL THEATRE AT A.R.T./NY THEATRES James Joyce's Only Play Was Last Staged in New York in 1977 Adapted and Directed by Zachary Elkind, Cast Includes Rodd Cyrus, Layla Khoshnoudi, Jeffrey Omura, Violeta Picayo, and Mattie Tindall The MAP Theater is proud to present a rare revival of Exiles by James Joyce (1882-1941), one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Adapted and directed by Zachary Elkind, former Associate Artistic Director of Bedlam, Exiles is Joyce's only play and was last staged professionally in New York in 1977. This strictly limited engagement will run February 26 – March 15, 2025, with an opening set for Sunday, March 2 at The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T /New York Theatres (502 W 53rd St in Manhattan). Tickets are now on sale at www.themaptheater.com . Joyce's only play, rarely performed, arrives in New York — a sexy and tense romp in which a group of friends and couples tries to work out how to ethically have affairs with each other. Is it possible to have an affair with your own husband? Can you have love without possession? " Exiles is asking the same questions we've been trying to work out recently in culture," says director Zachary Elkind. "Joyce's characters are trying to invent the idea of an open marriage in 1912 Ireland. It's a thrilling and bracing reminder that we've always been fumbling in the dark. It's an almost unbearably intimate play, written by one of the great writers as a dispatch from the front lines of one of the great weird marriages. One character in the play says, ‘It is a terribly hard thing to do — to give oneself freely and wholly — and be happy.' That's as true now as ever, and I think we as an audience are hungry for the voyeuristic thrill of watching these people try to figure out a way through love, sex, marriage, fidelity, honesty, happiness, as best they can." The cast for Exiles includes Rodd Cyrus (Ragtime /NYCC Encores!), Layla Khoshnoudi (Will You Come With Me?/Play Company, 7 Minutes/Waterwell); Jeffrey Omura (Public Theater, Ma-Yi), Violeta Picayo (SITI Company, Bedlam), and Mattie Tindall. Written in 1914-1915, and first published in 1918, Exiles is considered to be Joyce's least successful work. He wrote the play while finishing his first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , and beginning work on Ulysses . The play was rejected by W. B. Yeats for production by Ireland's Abbey Theatre and for years, Joyce tried to interest theatrical companies in England, Ireland, and America. There were no takers until August 1919, when Exiles was staged in a German translation in Munich. Joyce summed up the world premiere: "Complete fiasco. Row in theatre. Play withdrawn. Author invited but not present… Thank God." Exiles was finally performed in English in 1925, at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, currently known as the Playhouse Theater at Abrons Arts Center. Decades later, the play found new appreciation as subsequent revivals, though limited and polarizing, were embraced by audiences and met with critical acclaim. The 1957 Off-Broadway revival of Exiles at the Renata Theatre won four Obie awards, including Best All-Around Production. Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times declared , "Despite his lack of capacity for theatrical writing, Exiles is an engrossing drama. Awkward, wordy, colorless, inconclusive, and also consistently engrossing." In 1970, a few years prior to writing Betrayal, Harold Pinter directed a widely praised revival of Exiles in London. Irving Wardle in The New York Times noted, "There is no greater excitement in the theater than the discovery of life in a play long given up as dead. Such is the case with the Mermaid Theater revival of James Joyce's solitary play, Exiles , which has had a dismal performance record ever since its first Munich reviewer in 1919 dismissed it as ‘so many tears over an Irish stew.' The new production of Exiles is the outstanding work in the London season so far this year. The play can be seen as a blackened canvas restored to its true colors." The last professional revival in New York was produced by Circle Repertory Company in 1977. Mel Gussow in The New York Times called it a "tantalizing, unjustly neglected play. There is a beguiling air of mystery and domestic menace as these people seduce and betray one another —intellectually as well as emotionally." The creative team for Exiles includes Cate McCrea (scenic design), Alyssa Korol (costume design), Amara McNeil (lighting design), Rebecca Hanai Malamud (production stage manager), and Spencer Lutvak (producer). Fourteen performances of Exiles will take place February 26 – March 15, 2025, at The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T /New York Theatres, located at 502 W 53rd St in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Thursday, February 27, for an opening on Sunday, March 2. The performance schedule is Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 5pm. The anticipated running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets, priced at $50 for general admission and with $25 discount tickets available to those in need, can be purchased at www.themaptheater.com . Please visit www.themaptheater.com for more information. About the Artists Zachary Elkind (Director) is a director based in New York. From 2019 – 2024, Elkind was the Associate Artistic Director of Bedlam, where he directed Mary Stuart, filmed entirely in his Brooklyn walkup apartment. At Bedlam, he also curated the Do More: New Plays series of readings and workshops, through which he commissioned Talene Monahon's The Good John Proctor for Bedlam's world premiere production and developed work with Zora Howard, Julian Hornik, Emily Gardner Xu Hall, Stefani Kuo, a.k. payne, Emily Breeze, Madison Fiedler, Renae Simone Jarrett, Sam Hamashima, and Eleanor Burgess. Other recent work: If We Kiss, Richard II (The MAP); Anna Karenina, Hedda Gabler, Sparks Fly Upward (Bedlam); Richard II (Luna Stage); Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables (Ghostlight); Macbeth (NYU Steinhardt). Elkind has also worked with Page 73, the New Group, Symphony Space, Heartbeat Opera, BRIC, and Live from Lincoln Center. His feature film adaptation of Three Sisters, filmed in 2024, is currently in post-production. www.zacharyelkind.com Rodd Cyrus (Robert Hand) recently starred as ‘Harry Houdini' in Ragtime for Encores! at New York City Center and also played ‘Giuseppe Naccarelli' in The Light in the Piazza in their previous season. Theater: Mamma Mia! (The Hollywood Bowl), Valor (Guthrie), We Won't Sleep (Eugene O'Neill Theater Center), Tomorrow Will Be Sunday (Chautauqua), My Real Mother (Signature Theatre). Television: "Elsbeth" (CBS), "The Equalizer" (CBS). Upcoming Film: Doctor, Doctor; Sleeping Dogs. Cyrus is a graduate of The Juilliard School (MFA) and UCLA (BA). www.roddcyrus.com Layla Khoshnoudi (Bertha) Select Theater: Odyssey (The Acting Company); Will You Come With Me? (Play Company); 7 Minutes (Waterwell); Men on Boats (Clubbed Thumb); Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons); Bull in a China Shop (LCT3); Dido of Idaho (Ensemble Studio Theater); Nobody's Girl (NJ Rep); Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater); Wyoming (Lesser America); I am Gordafarid (Noor Theater). TV: "Instinct" (CBS); "FBI" (CBS); "All Hail Beth" (BricTV), "My Ex is Trending" (YouTube). Film: Long Nights, Short Mornings; Bad at Birthdays, Nadia Jaan; Androgen; Bookends. MFA in Acting, Brooklyn College. www.laylakhoshnoudi.com Jeffrey Omura (Richard Rowan) is known for his work onstage in New York with The Public Theater, Playwrights' Realm, Ma-Yi Theater Company, and National Asian American Theater Company, and around the country with Arena Stage, Weston Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, Hartford Stage, and more. Some television credits include "Hawaii Five-0," "Succession," "Elementary," "Limitless," "The Blacklist," "Gossip Girl"; "High Maintenance". His voiceover work can be heard in more than 50 films and television shows. He's a founding member of Fair Wage Onstage and Be An #ArtsHero; and a three-time elected officer of Actors' Equity's National Council. He's a proud graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. www.jeffreyomura.com . Violeta Picayo (Beatrice Justice) is a bilingual Cuban-American director/choreographer and actor. Picayo has directed world premiere productions including Helen. (SuperGeographics, En Garde Arts, La Mama) and The Strangers Came Today (Society, New Ohio). NYC performance credits include: The Medium (BAM, SITI Company), War of the Worlds (SITI Co.), Three Little Girls Down a Well (Under the Radar @ The Public), Evelyn Brown (La MaMa), Sense and Sensibility (Bedlam), Julius Caesar (Pocket Universe). She has worked regionally throughout the US at the American Repertory Theater, Portland Center Stage, the Fisher Center, City Theatre, and internationally in Argentina, Chile, England, Greece, India, Scotland. Violeta is a company member of The SuperGeographics and an associate artist of SITI Company. She is the inaugural recipient of SDCF's Abe Burrows Award, and is a proud graduate of Vassar College, the National Theater Institute, and SITI Company's Conservatory. www.violetapicayo.com Mattie Tindall (Archie, Brigid) is an NYC-based playwright and director with roots in southern Virginia. Mattie's work has been performed at The Tank, Wild Project, Hollins University, Davidson College, Glendale Community College, James Clemens Theatre, and the Hudson Guild Theater. About The MAP Theater The MAP Theater produces new and classic plays asking how we can find a way forward in community with other people. We're especially interested in plays where every character is trying to do the right thing — where tensions or conflicts come not from the presence of evil among them but from the fact that it is hard to be with others, that we all have different needs and desires, even as we try to work together. We're curious about care, in systems and structures and networks of care, the way(s) we struggle/fail/succeed in taking care of each other, in giving care to each other. What would a theater look like that centered on, rather than the duel/debate/argument, the conversation? Previous work includes Richard II (2022), which transferred to Luna Stage, and the world premiere of Rachel Vail's If We Kiss (2024). www.themaptheater.com About A.R.T./New York Theatres The A.R.T./New York Theatres are a project of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York) which provide state-of-the-art, accessible venues and top-line technical equipment at subsidized rates, so that the city's small and emerging theatre companies can continue to experiment, grow, and produce new works. Founded in 1972, A.R.T./New York assists over 500 member theatres in realizing their rich artistic visions and serving their diverse audiences well. A.R.T ./New York accomplishes this through providing progressive services to our members – from shared office and rehearsal spaces to technical assistance programs for emerging theatres. Because of this dedication to serving the needs of the nonprofit theatre community, A.R.T./New York has received numerous honors, including an Obie Award, an Innovative Theatre Award, a New York City Mayor's Award for Arts & Culture, and a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre. For more information, please visit www.art-newyork.org. |
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