Dublin Theatre Festival reviews: Tales of a rural AirBnB, and threatened boglands
Jane Brennan and Gráinne Keenan in The Loved Ones at the Gate for Dublin Theatre Festival. Photo: Ros Kavanagh
★★★☆☆
In rural West Clare, middle-aged Nell runs a farmhouse AirBnB. Her son Robin has been dead for six months, and as the play opens, she is awaiting the arrival from London of her daughter-in-law Orla. Their relationship has not always been easy, but they have agreed on this place and time to scatter his ashes.
The task is soon complicated by the arrival of two other women, a young English student named Gabby and an American birdwatcher named Cheryl-Ann. It transpires that Gabby knew the late Robin too. Hers is arguably the most difficult role in the play, and she is played persuasively by Fanta Barrie.
The Loved Ones touches on any number of serious subjects – abortion, IVF, infidelity – but is often played for laughs. Most stem from Cheryl-Ann’s naïve interjections, though she too is revealed to have suffered a great loss.
The Loved Ones is Erica Murray’s first play. Her writing is perfectly accomplished, though one wishes she had gone deeper in exploring her characters' psyches.
- The Loved Ones runs until October 21
★★★★☆
Luke Casserly’s homage to the boglands of Co Longford invites the audience to sit around a large table covered in lumps of dried turf as he describes his rediscovery – during the Covid lockdowns - of the landscape of his childhood.
That landscape has changed radically in recent years, as recognition of the boglands’ environmental value has brought an end to industrial peat harvesting. That in turn has meant a loss of jobs and income, threatening communities across the Midlands.
Casserly’s performance is genuinely inventive, featuring a video projection on his body, a re-enactment of a conversation with his father – voiced by a volunteer – and a passage that recalls the situation of Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days.
Casserly’s collaboration with perfume maker Joan Woods – a unique scent based on materials collected in the bogs – brings another dimension to the experience.
It is not every day that an audience is invited to employ their sense of smell in a theatrical setting, and most seemed grateful to leave with a modest distillation of the boglands in their possession.
- Distillation runs on October 13-14
- Further information: dublintheatrefestival.ie
