Exiles (play)

Exiles

First edition of Exiles, 1918.
Author	James Joyce
Country	Ireland
Language	English
Subject	Famous writer returns to Dublin after nine years of exile
Genre	Drama
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	25 May 1918
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	96–159, depending on edition
ISBN
OCLC	74217902

Exiles is James Joyce's only extant play and draws on the story of "The Dead", the final short story in Joyce's story collection Dubliners. The play was rejected by W. B. Yeats for production by the Abbey Theatre. Its first major London performance was in 1970, when Harold Pinter directed it at the Mermaid Theatre.

In terms of both its critical and popular reception, Exiles has proven the least successful of all of Joyce's published works. In making his case for the defence of the play, Padraic Colum conceded: "...critics have recorded their feeling that [Exiles] has not the enchantment of Portrait of the Artist nor the richness of [Ulysses]... They have noted that Exiles has the shape of an Ibsen play and have discounted it as being the derivative work of a young admirer of the great Scandinavian dramatist."

Joyce himself described the structure of the play as "three cat and mouse acts".

The play follows four players and two couples, Richard Rowan, a writer and his "common-law wife"Bertha, and Robert Hand with his cousin and previous lover Beatrice, both old friends of the previous couple.

“The plot is deceptively simple: Richard, a writer, returns to Ireland from Rome with Bertha, the mother of his illegitimate son, Archie. While there, he meets his former lover and correspondent Beatrice Justice and former drinking partner and now successful journalist Robert Hand. Robert was also Beatrice’s lover, and here the complications begin."

As jealousy develops throughout the relationships the action meditates mostly in a budding relationship between Hand and Bertha and thus in Hand's attempts at seduction with the lover of his friend.

The first act takes place at Rowan's house where Hand makes his first advance at Bertha. After kissing her "with passion" several times Hand requests she join him in his home for a second meeting later that evening. Bertha in turn confides in Rowan and questions whether or not to accept his invitation. To this, Rowan retorts she must do whatever she pleases.