The Lulu House

James Joyce House ***

THE DRAWING room of the James Joyce House has been transformed into a museum dedicated to Louise Brooks – Brooksy – the silent film actress with the "black helmet hair". Curated by Jack Flowers (Lorcan Cranitch), there are curios from her career – posters, props, stills – and a reel from the film she was best known for in her lifetime: Pandora's Box. One of the props is a Louise Brooks pincushion, whose enlarged shadow upon the wall foreshadows what is to come. It is Pandora's Boxitself, however, that becomes the key to unravelling the mystery of The Lulu House,an inter-textual performance installation directed by Selina Cartmell, which, for all its stunning imagery, threatens to remain an enigma to the uninitiated.

Camille O’Sullivan appears as Louise/Pandora/Lulu, the object of Jack Flowers’ affection and infatuation. The two fine performers act both as our guides – leading us through the atmospherically reconfigured James Joyce House – and as the key actors in this drama of obsession. Every alcove in the house provides us with a clue, and in the different rooms key scenes are re-enacted against a backdrop of clips from the silent film. The heavy reliance on projections for narrative coherence, however, often becomes a distraction, splitting the audience’s gaze between live and recorded action. It provides audience members that are unfamiliar with the film with an important context for the fragmentary scenes; however, the layers of imitation are often lost in the live translation.

Yet, as an experience of atmosphere and image there is no disputing the magic that Cartmell creates and commands, with the help of composer Conor Linehan, designer Gaby Rooney and lighting designer Sinead McKenna. The crumbling interior of the James Joyce House itself does much of the work, but each element of the production design harnesses the building’s natural features for often transformative effect. Ironically, the most beautiful sequence is when “Louise”, as the audience now knows her, steps out into the natural environment of the rain-soaked Dublin quays. If only we knew who she was and where she was going.

Runs until October 16th