"Bergin creates a thread through time in the character of the spirited Honor Gately (Sarah Morris), a sex worker determined to defy her circumstances as a feculent wench, whose great-granddaughter, also played compellingly by Morris, breaks old patterns and starts to write a novel. Lives intertwined through generations Dublin Gothic. Photograph: Ros Kavanagh Honor's blubberpus son (Thommas Kane Byrne) brings gleeful comedy to the role of an accidental patriot in the 1916 Easter Rising."
"His is one of a number of historical characters conflated by Bergin to pointedly anti-heroic effect: we meet loosely emblematic incarnations of James Joyce, Padraig Pearse and Brendan Behan, as well as a Bob Geldof/Bono-like singer. A rogues' gallery of abusive, duplicitous or pathetic men politicians, priests, wastrel writers flashes past, with subtlety sacrificed to narrative momentum. With a dynamic ensemble cast of 19 on stage throughout, the storytelling is elaborate, expansive and sometimes smothering."
Street names trace Dublin's degraded geography from Tosser's Pot to Kiphouse Row. The story opens in an inner-city tenement in 1880 and covers 100 years, following four families whose lives intertwine across generations. Recurring trauma, especially toward women, shapes destinies through poverty, disease, violence, revolution, and later heroin and HIV-Aids crises. Honor Gately, a spirited sex worker, and her compellingly played great-granddaughter form a throughline that breaks old patterns and begins a novel. Historical figures are conflated into anti-heroic incarnations, while a large ensemble plays over 120 roles across three-and-a-half hours, creating elaborate but occasionally overwhelming storytelling.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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