Bloomsday: A Tragicomedy

At Tim Finnegan's Irish wake a Boston advertising executive, Rudy Bloom, and Harvard Professor, Dr. Thomas Dedalus meet for the first time. Bloom's tragically beautiful wife and poetess, Penelope Bloom, is meeting with her rich, handsome publisher, Blaine Boylston, who brazenly covets Penelope. After a witty dinner party with Harvard scholars, Bloom and Dedalus wander into the brothel of Bella Kirke in Boston's infamous Combat Zone. Afterward, at the Parker House Dedalus shares his battle with alcoholism and Bloom confides a life-threatening ailment. At home Penelope is tempted by Blaine but vows to remain faithful. At age 104, Molly Bloom prays in a Dublin church for her lost sons: although neither knows it, Rudy and Thomas are brothers through a common father in deceased Dr. Stephen Dedalus, professor at Trinity College Dublin. Penelope's monologue on men, sex, love and fidelity is interwoven with ancient Molly Bloom's moving prayer for reunion with her lost sons in America, as the sky brightens on the Father's Day of Bloomsday.