Out Of Their Minds

The play takes us back to Paris in 1928-1938, when the young Samuel Beckett served James Joyce as his personal assistant, providing an insightful look at the inner workings of the Joyce family. Beckett, a lost soul who has failed in life (before writing his great novels and plays), arrives to worship at the seat of his creative master and make himself useful. Joyce, who is partially blinded by multiple eye operations, finds the cultured fellow Irishman useful and sympathetic, so Beckett joins in their constellation. Joyce’s dancer daughter, Lucia, falls in love with Beckett, but over time, loses her sanity. The play is a tragic tail of thwarted love, but with the fascination of the wit, humor, and originality of some of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century. Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Lucia Joyce and Nora Joyce come alive before our eyes.