Nighttown

Susan Mosakowski

Available in Library

Shakespearean actor Caesar McCarthy, institutionalized in a Dublin sanatorium for the attempted murder of his adulterous wife, finds himself paired up with another cuckold, a Mr. Leo Kettle, interred because he believes that he has drowned his wife’s lover. Homesick and pining for his wife, Caesar re-invents himself as James Joyce and casts Mr. Kettle as Leopold Bloom from the novel Ulysses, launching them on an imaginative journey to Dublin’s infamous red-light district, which Joyce called Nighttown.

Michael Ryan & Matthew Maguire Photo: Steve Kahn
Michael Ryan & Matthew Maguire Photo: Steve Kahn
Cast Requirements

2 men

Set Description

Unit Set: Dublin Sanatorium

Press

“Mosakowski’s conceit is neat…Strong performances.”
—David Cote, Time Out NY

“It’s impossible to see the current production without thinking again and again of Beckett in general and Waiting for Godot. Beckett’s Gogo and Didi. . .playing out poignant, borderline comic exchanges similar to the word games Mosakowski has devised for Leo and Joyce.”
—Joseph Hurley, Irish Echo

See More

Press

“Evocative.”
—Jessica Winter, Village Voice

“Covering the gamut from sadness to joy, anger to forgiveness, and infused with both humor and tragedy, Nighttown has an overall poetic quality. Mosakowski has orchestrated the proceedings with warmth and skill.”
—Diana Barth, Irish Voice

“[The] enraged denial of identity that comes at the beginning of Susan Mosakowski’s strange and fascinating new play, Nighttown, is thrown in the face of the man who desperately wants to become James Joyce…”
—Dan Isaac, Backstage

Production and Development History

Premiere: The Flea Theater, New York (2002).

Staged reading: National Arts Club, Food for Thought Series (2002).

Workshop: Irish Repertory Theatre.

Nighttown
Written and Directed by Susan Mosakowski
Set and Light Design: Kyle Chepulis
Sound Design: Timothy J. Anderson
Stage Manager: Kristen Petliski

Performed by Matthew Maguire and Michael Ryan