Family Reunion

Bare stage. Harold Bloom enters, takes center stage.

Harold Bloom:

My dears, you have no idea of my anguish and my agon. Etymologically, truth goes back to tree, and influenza is a tributary of influence. The truth, uninfluenced by my angst, is that I am surrounded on all sides by a rabblement of resentful lemmings.

Claire Bloom enters, takes center stage, with Harold Bloom moving two steps to the right to accommodate her.

Claire Bloom:

You cannot know what it is like to work as a London librarian, sleep with a sordid spy, die at the base of the Berlin Wall, and survive and live with Philip Roth.

Allan Bloom enters, takes center stage, with the others moving two steps to their left to accommodate him.

Allan Bloom:

Woe is me, O, woe is me. You cannot know, you cannot know, such woe.

Vivian Darkbloom enters, takes center stage, with the others moving to their right as before.

Vivian Darkbloom:

My purely notional existence ratifies the fragment of immortality that is an anagram of my name, but can anyone know what I know? No.

Molly Bloom enters, takes center stage, with the others moving to their left.

Molly Bloom:

Who among you can truly know the feelings of one who has been designated the representative of her sex, an unfaithful Penelope, whose body is a river that shall never cease to flow? No, no, do not say yes.

Leopold Bloom enters, takes center stage, with the others moving to their right.

Leopold Bloom:

In the New Bloomusalem there will be room for us all, room for all the Blooms!

The Blooms form a chorus line, turn to one another, bow and shake hands. At the same time, the rest of the chorus—consisting of Maxie Rosenbloom, Michael Bloomberg, Fleur Forsyte, Iris Murdoch, Bud Harrelson, Pete Rose, Blossom Dearie, Daisy Clover, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Hyacinth Robinson, Heather Sears, Poppy Harlow, Danica Patrick, and Lily Lehmann—sing "Red Roses for a Blue Lady."