Think of all the times you thought, “What if…?” What if you had called the girl (or guy) you exchanged numbers with but were too busy to follow up on? What if you had gone to that “other” school instead of the UW? What if you had called off the wedding you knew was a mistake instead of going through with it? What if you had taken the flight that crashed? So many “what ifs.”
That’s the premise underlying Steven Dietz’s play Bloomsday now playing at ACT Theater in Seattle. Bloomsday, as it is known in literary circles, occurs every June 16 to mark the day James Joyce first published Ulysses. Leopold Bloom, Joyce’s character, walks the streets of Dublin visiting friends, bars, and a brothel. The play Bloomsday is set in present day Dublin (or is it Dublin 35 years ago?). Time shifts between the two periods as the four actors on stage consider the “what ifs.” The two young actors are an Irish girl who takes visitors around the city celebrating Ulysses and recreating Leopold Bloom’s day and an American student who joins her tour group. The other two actors are their older selves ruminating on what might have happened if they had acted on their feelings 35 years earlier. The premise is clever and the dialogue crisp and funny. One of the advantages of being a writer is the ability to change outcomes and endings. One of my favorite novels, The French Lieutenant’s Woman has more that one ending. The reader can choose the one he likes best. Steven Dietz does something similar in Bloomsday. The young performers have a “what if” opportunity to choose a different ending.
