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STAGE REVIEW : Joyce and O’Neill Share Billing

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The newly formed Trinity Theatre opens its first program with a blast of unaccompanied Irish singing--first in Gaelic, then in English--by a woman named Jacintha Friel. Wearing a warm shawl, warbling her plaintive tunes, she transports her listeners across the water.

Next up on the program, titled “Voices From Joyce” and “Hughie,” is Matthew Sullivan’s thoughtful recitation of the last great speech from James Joyce’s “The Dead”--which filmgoers heard last year in the closing minutes of John Huston’s film of the same name. Sullivan’s delivery is beautifully clear and understated.

The same can’t be said for Maria Hayden’s performance of a monologue that Joyce wrote for Anna Livia in “Finnegan’s Wake.” Although director Jim Kerrigan places it into context in a brief introduction “so you’re not totally lost by the inaccessibility of it,” most listeners won’t be able to make heads or tails of it. Hayden’s stance and voice are full of oomph--and the piece is fairly short. But generally this is language that should be read (with footnotes), not recited.

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Eugene O’Neill’s one-act “Hughie” follows intermission, picking up on the same theme (the “shades” among us) as the excerpt from “The Dead.” Kerrigan’s gambler is properly scruffy, but he swallows too many words and his morose moments lack weight. As the night clerk (who says he hailed from Ireland, instead of the text’s Saginaw), Sean O’Connor is blissfully bored by Kerrigan’s patter. But he doesn’t support the man’s sudden change of mood near the end of the play.

At St. Ambrose Hall, 1261 N. Fairfax Ave., Saturdays and Sundays at 8 p.m., indefinitely. Tickets: $10; (213) 466-1767.

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