And then is done again and again as the tide flows out and in and welcomes the River Liffey, from James Joyce’s Dublin and all Dublins and all rivers that flow down to the sea. This riverrun flowed through the voice and body of Olwen Fouéré at the National Theatre’s Shed. Fouéré’s voice spiralled through five or six selected sections of Finnegans Wake as her body moved and swayed to the music of the language and the pace of the river as it makes its way down. Fouéré’s voicing created a senssurround, her features were magnetic and her soft breathing through the microphone of the noise of waves softly punctuated the pattern of the text.
The text of Finnegans Wake is made to be spoken and performed. Its boundaries are only in the minds of its readers. Joyce was beyond them, the permanent exile always personally and artistically standing apart. Gerry Kearn, in an article that complements Fouéré’s own comments, says, ‘As the Liffey enters Dublin Bay and loses coherence, it is thinking about separation, even exile: ‘And we’d be married till delth to uspart. And though dev do esparto’.
In her programme note, Fouéré quotes Joyce – ‘…we must write dangerously…A book, in my opinion, should not be planned out beforehand, but as one writes it will form itself.” And Fouéré adds, ‘He could have been speaking about performance. Embrace the danger’. Joyce’s remark was slightly disingenuous, given how much planning underpins Ulysses, but Fouéré’s setting forth on her wordsong monologue has a real sense of letting go and sailing into the unknown, as the sun rises over the river of Dublin and the river of life.
The full house was attentive, sometimes rapt, certainly warm to the jokes and enlightened by Fouéré’s powerful presence and gifts.