Rosie O'Donnell review: US star shows her appreciation for Ireland at Cork Opera House show
A file image of Rosie O'Donnell, the US comedian who performed her stand-up show at Cork Opera House on Sunday. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
★★★☆☆
There’s a loud, collective laugh of pure relief when, about five minutes into a depressing opening monologue, Rosie O’Donnell asks her Cork audience: “Now, I know what you're thinking: ‘Did I buy the wrong fucking ticket?’”
A comically-oversized confetti cannon is produced and fired to reassure the crowd that the comedy is on the way. “It's just I couldn't tell the story of my life without the tragic Irish beginning,“ she says.
However, it takes a while to really get the laughs going in this 75-minute show after that serious, monotone description of the day her mother died in 1973.
Common Knowledge is O’Donnell’s first stand-up show in nearly a decade, but it feels wrong to describe it as simply stand-up when it incorporates so much biographical detail, political commentary, neurodivergent advocacy — it’s part comedy, part Ted Talk, all Rosie.
From the supportive cheers on Sunday night in Cork Opera House, O’Donnell’s Irish fans are happy to indulge her walk down memory lane and her description of her new life in Ireland in the wake of her self-imposed exile from the United States.
Many topics may even be familiar to her social media followers who watch her chatty videos, but there is an undeniable sense of support and appreciation for O’Donnell from the crowd.
Motherhood and identity are core themes of the show, as O’Donnell also reflects on her experience as a mother, having adopted five children herself. Her youngest child, Clay, moved with her to Ireland last year and O’Donnell describes the joys and struggles they face together, particularly focusing on Clay’s autism diagnosis and revelation that they are non-binary and use they/them pronouns. There is warm whooping when O’Donnell shares how she identifies herself: “I’m just an OG lesbian bitch.”
The move to Ireland and O’Donnell’s integration into Irish society receive some of the biggest cheers from the audience, though O’Donnell certainly retains a classic Irish-American shamrock-tinted view of the country, from twee accents to some tired clichés.
The loudest reaction from the audience comes when O’Donnell mentions “the orange menace”. Donald Trump has shared his negative opinions of O’Donnell publicly for almost two decades, and the back and forth between them reached such a crescendo that O’Donnell reveals even her therapist said she was obsessed with the US president. “You think I am obsessed with him?” O’Donnell says. “I think he is obsessed with me.”
Ultimately, her move to Ireland came as a result of his re-election and the 64-year-old entertainer tells the Cork crowd she has no plans to leave her new home country.
“I have to tell you the weather, even those 53 days of rain, hasn't really bothered me here, because Ireland is about so much more than the weather. It's about the warmth of the people,” she says, gushing about the cèad mile failte. ‘I can't truly believe how kind and welcoming every single person has been to myself and my autistic, non-binary child.”
Though billed as a stand-up show, Common Knowledge is more nuanced than that, but those seeking non-stop laughter may well leave a touch disappointed.
