A time-twisting love story set on the streets of Dublin is playing at Howick Little Theatre until 1 August.
“Every read through has brought more admiration for how beautifully it is written,” director Penel Keegan writes in her note on the production.
“It is so evocative, of time and place, and human frailties and strengths.”
Bloomsday, a dramatic romance by American writer Steven Dietz, follows Robert, who returns to Dublin years after a brief encounter with a tour guide he could not forget.
Younger and older versions of both characters share the stage, so four actors play two people.
Keegan says the play “tackles many heavy themes, but does so with grace and humour”.
“We often think of ghosts as incarnations of the deceased, but Bloomsday is a strong reminder that the living can haunt us with as much consistency and sadness as the dead,” she writes.
Richard De Luca plays Robert and Jo Crichton plays Cait, with Liv Costello and Aaron James as their younger selves.
Crichton, a life member of the theatre who first appeared there in 1987, says in the programme she is “a little anxious to be working with an Irish accent”, last heard in Dancing at Lughnasa in 1996.
Set designer Emma Bishop has rebuilt several real Dublin landmarks for the show, including the pubs Davy Byrnes and McDaid’s, Sweny’s chemist, and 7 Eccles Street, the fictional home of Leopold and Molly Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Sound is designed by Peter Webster, who is in his 51st year of membership at the theatre and designing sound for an HLT production for the first time.
“Sound design, both crafting effects and selecting music, is an activity I would encourage young people to explore, as the process is technology-rich,” Webster says in the programme.
Performances run at 8pm on 23, 24, 25, 29, 30 and 31 July and 1 August.
The Sunday matinee has been moved from 19 July to 26 July at 2pm because of cast illness, and the theatre’s own listing carries the new date.
Tickets are $33 standard, $30 for seniors and $19 for students, with a $29 rate for groups of 10 or more.
The production runs two hours including a 20-minute interval, carries an adult-themes advisory and is recommended for ages 13 and over.
Howick Little Theatre is principally funded by the Howick Local Board.
