https://www.onelittlegoat.org/finneganswake

Welcome to the opening pages of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. In this episode we’ll hear Irish-Canadian actor Richard Harte reading the first five pages of Joyce’s legendary last novel for a live audience, with an introduction by director Adam Seelig.

Born in Ireland’s capital and raised in both Dublin and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Richard Harte has made Toronto his home for the past 25 years. He’s performed on prestigious stages across Canada, hundreds of times with One Little Goat Theatre Company, and made numerous TV appearances. He is also a member of Toronto’s Anna Livia Company, performing Joyce’s Ulysses every Bloomsday (June 16).

Richard’s reading (pages 3:1-8:8) was recorded live in Toronto on 31 August 2022.

For Wake text and Episode Transcripts, visit https://www.onelittlegoat.org/finneganswake.

“James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake” is produced by One Little Goat Theatre Company, an official charity in Canada and the United States. If you’d like to support our work, please visit us online to make a charitable donation.

To get in touch, email us at onelittlegoattc@gmail.com — we’d love to hear from you.

This podcast is made possible by Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company and the Emigrant Support Programme of the Government of Ireland. Thank you for your support!

Thank you to Darina Gallagher and the James Joyce Centre in Dublin for your partnership.

Thank you to the artists for this episode: Kevin Kennedy, Sound by William Bembridge, Podcast production by Sean Rasmussen, Stage Management by Laura Lakatosh, Rehearsal Stage Management by Sandi Becker, Directed by Adam Seelig.

Thanks to our live audience of Pip Dwyer, Cathy Murphy, Nomi Rotbard, Arlo Rotbard-Seelig; and thanks to our rehearsal audience of Jackie Chau, Jordy Koffman, Andrew Moodie & Shai Rotbard-Seelig.

Thank you to the Embassy of Ireland in Ottawa and the Irish Consulate in Toronto and to Production Consultants Cathy Murphy and Andrew Moodie.

Thank you for listening!

Mentioned: riverrun, music, sound, rivers, water, streams of consciousness and unconsciousness, dreams, dream language, multiple languages, characters ALP (Anna Livia Plurabelle) and HCE (Earwicker), comedy, Mother Goose, what makes something funny?, circularity and “recirculation,” synopsis, Roland McHugh, John Gordon, Edmund Epstein, Marshall McLuhan’s copy of the Wake (accessed at Fisher Rare Books Library), Thierry Bissonnette, Gertrude Stein.

Resources:

Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce: there are many free copies to read online or download, e.g. finwake.com

James Joyce Digital Archive, “Chicken Guide” to Finnegans Wake provides a ‘plain English’ paraphrase of each chapter by Danis Rose.

Edmund Epstein, A Guide through Finnegans Wake. University Press of Florida, 2009.

William York Tindall. A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake. Syracuse University Press, 1996.

Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (4th edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2016.

John Gordon’s annotations on his Finnegans Wake blog.

Richard Ellmann’s biography of James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1982.

For fun: “What’s So Funny? Well, Maybe Nothing,” John Tierney. New York Times, March 13, 2007.