Lucia’s Chapters of Coming Forth by Day

Lucia’s Chapters of Coming Forth by Day explores the life and death of Lucia Joyce, the adored daughter of James Joyce. As a young woman in Paris, Lucia’s life was filled with writers and artists and intellectuals. She was a dancer and a painter. Her father believed Lucia to be the true inheritor of his genius. But while still in her twenties, her behavior grew erratic. For the next fifty years, until her death in 1982, Lucia was confined to a mental hospital for schizophrenia.

This stunning production imagines Lucia’s afterlife as she navigates, using her own “Book of the Dead,” toward final illumination. Haunted by a dark figure, Lucia struggles with her past and her fate, shedding light on her place in the Joyce legacy. Weaving movement, language, and projection, Lucia’s Chapters reveals a brilliant yet deeply troubled woman who is finally, perhaps, best understood through her father’s work. Aided by richly textured visuals and an evocative score, the show is an exquisite sensory experience.

Written and Directed by Sharon Fogarty; Performed by Ruth Maleczech; Projection by Julie Archer

Since its inception in 1970, the artists of Mabou Mines have created seventy original productions in English, Spanish and French and have won over fifty major awards – including Obie, American Theater Wing, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle awards and Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Fulbright, NEA, and MacArthur fellowships. Their works, which have toured extensively nationally and internationally, are at the forefront of experimentation in technology, international collaboration, and multi-disciplinary creations with visual artists, puppeteers and composers.