Lucia Joyce

A Musical Drama in Four Acts

Composer: Patrick Zimmerli
LIBRETTIST: Spencer Matheson
Director: Mirabelle Ordinaire
DESIGNER: Philippine Ordinaire

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Lucia Joyce, James Joyce’s daughter, was a promising dancer in late-20’s Paris, and romantically linked with Samuel Beckett. But her career was cut short, and as her romance with Beckett faltered, she began showing signs of the mental illness that would see her spend the last 50 years of her life in insane asylums, forsaken by her family. 

James Joyce believed his daughter had inherited the spark of his genius. But his enormous artistic shadow, megalomania, excessive drinking, and eccentric sexuality may have combined to stifle Lucia’s own artistic growth. Whatever the case, James achieved lasting success and literary fame, while his daughter’s fledgling career was cruelly expunged. 

Carol Loeb Schloss’ biography Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake credits Lucia with much of the language and texture of Finnegans Wake. Moreover, Schloss suggests that Beckett may have been using Lucia to gain access to her illustrious father. James saw everyone in his life in terms of how they could serve his own creative ambitions. And there is an open question of incest within the family, between Lucia and her older and domineering brother Giorgio, or even with James himself. 

Stephen Joyce, James’ grandson, destroyed all the letters he possessed from Lucia, including some held in the collection of the National Library of Ireland, and he convinced Beckett to destroy much of his correspondence with Lucia as well. Whether he was simply tired of the Joyce industry prying into what he had every right to consider a private, family affair, or whether he was trying to cover up a dark and shameful secret, the truth of Lucia’s story will likely be forever unknown. 

Lucia Joyce treats that not-knowing dramatically, presenting a heart-wrenching narrative that respects both the characters’ documented sufferings and the unknowability of the truth. Lucia spent a lifetime of stunted expression, of being silenced by strong men; the burning of her letters, a final act of silencing, will itself be dramatized onstage. 

The music, by composer Patrick Zimmerli, is melodic and emotionally direct, grounded in traditional opera, but with a strong, driving jazz sound, and subtle inflections of pop and Irish music. James Joyce was an opera lover, and there are echoes of the operas that he loved, particularly Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. There are also references to the music created in 1920s Paris that Lucia would’ve danced to. Passages of improvisation for the jazz instruments will give a fresh feeling to each performance, and also give it a distinct sound.