Reimagining Bloomsday for Molly, and All Women
The mayor of Derry gave a speech. The first and deputy ministers of Northern Ireland took to the stage. All were women, and all were in the city on Thursday to celebrate the opening of Yes festival, an ode to female artists and creativity that also rounds off a two-year celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of “Ulysses,” James Joyce’s sprawling, encyclopedic novel.
“Ulysses,” which Joyce modeled on Homer’s “Odyssey,” is devoted mostly to the ruminations and actions of men — the protagonist Leopold Bloom, his friend Stephen Dedalus and a variety of Dublin characters — as Leopold traverses the city on a single day, June 16.
But it’s Leopold’s wife, Molly Bloom, who gets the novel’s last word in the final episode, “Penelope.” Or rather, the last 22,000 words, which conclude with the phrase “yes I said yes I will Yes.”
This year, that monologue — a stream-of-consciousness meditation on love, sex, marriage, bodies, men and more — is the inspiration for the Yes festival and its final flourish, Molly Bloomsday, which reimagines Bloomsday, the annual re-enactment of Leopold’s wanderings by “Ulysses” devotees.
Starting at 8 a.m. on Sunday and ending in the early hours of Monday morning, audiences will crisscross the border between Derry and Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, for a day of performances, parades, dances, poetic meanderings and meals that refer to the 18 episodes of the novel.
