From 1918 to 1922, renowned Irish author James Joyce published parts of his masterwork, Ulysses. Hailed by many to be one of the greatest literary works in history, the novel left its mark not just on literary academia and global readers, but on the community of Dublin, where it was set.
To honor the book and Joyce’s legacy, Bloomsday was created. Held on June 16 in Dublin, the day aims to recreate the path that Leo Bloom, one of three main characters in Ulysses, takes as he walks around Dublin, while his wife waits for her lover back in their home.
As someone who is 50 percent Irish, I’ve always struggled with Ulysses. I much prefer its Greek inspiration, Homer’s The Odyssey. And while it’s true that Joyce put so much of Homer’s creation into his work, I will freely admit I had difficulty parsing Joyce’s meaty fog of words.
A similar difficulty is one of the things that Robbie, a central character in Lompoc Civic Theatre’s newest production, Bloomsday, admits early on in the play. An academic who devoted his entire life to becoming an expert on the book, Robbie (Craig Scott) shockingly shares that he kind of hates Joyce’s masterpiece. This serves as a liberating moment for the audience about to embark on a two-hour journey into the heart of Ulysses and a challenging love story loosely sparked by its existence.
In the play, written by Steven Dietz, Caithleen (Nikki Stark) plays a tour guide who sets out to show an eclectic variety of foreign tourists the very historic and real Dublin spots Joyce featured in Ulysses, as they retrace his character Bloom’s steps on that singular day. Robert (Charlie Frank) plays an American recently spurned by his girlfriend who falls madly in love with the Irish tour guide.
Meanwhile, 35 years later Robbie and Cait (Anne Ramsey) meet to revisit this fateful day and all the subsequent choices they made and the chaotic aftermath of those decisions. But when I say this, I don’t mean for you to assume these things happen in a linear fashion. The play creates a jarring sense of time and space; nothing is happening in a straight line on a clock or calendar; everything is happening all at once or backwards or however “time is a flat circle” kind of way you want to interpret it.
The nonlinear timeline is a powerful tool that harkens to Joyce’s work, especially in the last section, Episode 18: Penelope, which Joyce wrote in a stream of consciousness style. If you’re intimately familiar with the work and especially that section, I think it gives a clearer picture into what Dietz intended. But if you’re not, the play still works as a powerful tool, calling into question the nature of time and how we process something as simple yet devastating as regret.
As the ill-fated couple look back through their lives, they reasses key moments in their meetings. It’s a very relatable what if scenario in the hands of such capable actors as Ramsey and Scott, one that feels heartbreaking and frustrating. When they interact with their younger selves, the moments are all too real and powerful and transcend the box of a stage.
Scott once again does a supremely masterful job commanding his characters. Physically, he is captivating to watch, but paired with Ramsey—who brings so much vulnerability and ache to her character—he shines, allowing Robbie’s pain to slowly seep through. Stark and Frank have the kind of innocent chemistry that it takes to pull off roles such as these.
Lompoc Civic Theatre has done an incredible job of doing a bare-bones set that uses minimalism so as to not detract from the acting. The backlit cutouts of key locations, such as Sweny’s Chemist, are beautiful but never distracting. The lighting is used well to convey subtle changes in time perception and never feels corny or too obvious.
Some of the more difficult moments in the play prove rather challenging for these actors, but they don’t shy away from them. An Irish accent is a tough ask for any actor, and sometimes it seemed that the two female leads fell into the comfort of the rhythm of the accent rather than nailing the exact inflections. I didn’t mind though because they captured the essence of their characters, struggling with issues buried deep in their bones, terrified to let anyone else see their dark demons.
I recommend the play especially for fans of Joyce. You will be delighted to see his ghost hovering in so many corners of Dietz’s script. Dietz perfectly captured the soul of Joyce’s work, of how life moves not in the circles of the face of a clock or in the lines of historical context but rather in a beautiful chord of sentiment and emotion.
But even if you’re not a fan of complex Irish novelists, the play offers a unique look at how we process love, yearning, and regret.
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose’s Irish eyes are smiling. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 4, 2019.