YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom NYC Reviews and Tickets

80%

(48 Reviews)

Positive

83%

Mixed

17%

Negative

Members say

Great acting, Absorbing, Ambitious, Intelligent, Masterful

About the Show

Irish Rep's world-premiere solo show offers a daring theatrical journey into the mind and heart of James Joyce's most sensual hero – a woman of women, a soul of souls, the indomitable Molly Bloom.

It is Ireland in the early hours of June 17th, 1904. Molly Bloom's husband – the wandering philandering Leopold "Poldy" Bloom – has just come home & fallen asleep in their Dublin row house. Molly – a daughter, a mother, a lover, and a long suffering wife – patrols the pathways of her wild and leaping consciousness. With an empty nest, an unfulfilling affair, and a marriage long past its prime, Molly must find a way back to the rock-bed of love that she and Bloom once shared. Her unsentimental stream of consciousness is a song of songs that reaches backwards and forwards across the centuries.

Member Reviews (48)

Masterful, Great acting, Enchanting, Absorbing

See it if A very entertaining 75 minutes or so. Well written, great direction. Irish rep did a masterful job of Joyce.

Don't see it if If you do not like literature, deep stories or something lite.

Masterful, Raunchy, Slow, Great acting, Ambitious

See it if Moloney's tour-de-force as Joyce's erotic heroine Molly Bloom is show's raison d'etre She makes dense prose & novel's sweep quite accessible

Don't see it if Solo performance in tiny black box can become static Staging esp hindered w/much repetitious movement (that closet door!) but Molly still A1

Critic Reviews (7)

"Read aloud, it is a sensual experience for the ear, but when performed as exquisitely as it is by Aedín Moloney, it becomes an unforgettable experience for the eye as well...Moloney's intimate knowledge and love of the text are apparent in every syllable...Aside from being a magnificent way to celebrate Bloomsday this year, 'Yes!' also serves as an affirmation of female strength, liberation, and self-determination that we need to hear in our own times as well."
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"Director Kira Simring's intimate staging has the audience on two sides of designer Charlie Cororan's abstract setting of shapes on which to lounge, to pose and to play while thinly veiled in the diaphanous nightgown provided by designer Leon Dobkowski...In her dynamic portrayal, Moloney offers a portrait of woman burning to be seen and celebrated by those around her, as she sees and celebrates herself."
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"Moloney and McCann have created a highly speakable, unfailingly vivid dramatic piece; it's a cataract of words that carry us on their sheer beauty, not to mention their tactile sense of another time and place; it's a series of impressions, complaints, rhapsodies, and acid assertions, all of them adding up to an indelible portrait of Molly...The actress is possessed of unflagging energy and a microscope eye for nuance; this is an extraordinary performance."
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"Moloney passionately portrays James Joyce’s earthy 'Ulysses' character in this faithful stage adaptation that’s strikingly presented...This inspired narrative treatment combined with Moloney’s enthralling performance makes for an entrancing 80 minutes...Moloney totally embodies Molly Bloom as she forcefully conveys the icon’s humor and wistfulness...By vigorously uniting the verbal with the visual, Simring achieves high-caliber small-scale theatricality."
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“In a role that seems impossibly tailored to her, Moloney lives and breathes Molly Bloom’s infamous agony and ardor...Moloney’s performance is, quite simply, a masterpiece...Director Simring also deserves praise, as well as lighting designer...and sound designer. With their masterful direction and design, Moloney’s performance never once feels like just another one-woman show, but a theatrical tour de force...A performance to match the history books.”
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"It would be hard to match Moloney's extraordinary ability to blend exquisite movement with passionate, yet humorous, feeling, gorgeous vocal richness, and penetrating comprehension…She expresses Nora's feelings in a succession of statuesque poses and attitudes,…She's sensual, seductive, lustful, passionate, coy, witty, and melancholy, each transition distinctly expressed physically, emotionally, and verbally. Fascinatingly, she's realistic and poetic, earthy and elevated, in the same breath."
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"While Joyce's language is the thing here, there's also some gorgeous music interspersed during the beginning and end of the soliloquy by Paddy Moloney. This stream-of-consciousness soliloquy derives its strength from its cumulative force. However, Molly speaks most pertinently to the audience when she airs her sentiments about the dual genders and uncannily anticipating our #MeToo movement...A rare opportunity to see a chunk of 'Ulysses' meticulously dramatized."
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