Dublin Gothic – Abbey Theatre – Review
By Frank L

Dates: 22 November 2025 – 31 January 2026, On the Abbey Stage
Photos by Ros Kavanagh

Times:  Mon – Sat 7pm – Sat matinees 1pm
Tues 23 December, 1pm
Wed 31 December, 4pm

Running time: Approx. 3 hours 30 minutes, including 2 intervals

Dublin Gothic – Written by Barbara Bergin

This new play has 19 actors and 158 characters, according to its publicity. It lasts three and a half hours with two intervals. It tells the varied stories of the changing inhabitants of 1, O’Rehilly Parade in Dublin, a once grand Georgian house on the north side of the Liffey. The stories begin in the 1880s, and they travel through to the 1980s, when the house is still standing, which makes it noteworthy given the fate of so many others. The play is on a vast scale, and it has been in the making for fifteen years.

The stories it tells are of individuals whose voices were rarely, if ever, heard. Bergin, in an interview on RTE’s Arena, used the word “invisible”. In this work, women are, for the most part, the dominant forces. They are resourceful, earning money by whatever means they can. The menfolk are more feckless, and this is the world which the Sean O’Casey trilogy of plays depicted. The world of literary Dublin is referenced with individuals with careers similar to Joyce and Behan in the mix. They in turn spawned the unproductive habitues of Dublin pubs whose literary output produced comparatively little and deservedly get a fair pasting. There is disdain for the hierarchy with its obsession with seeing immorality everywhere, and in particular, the high-kicking chorus of the Empire Theatre. The phenomenon of the trendy priest, which emerged in the sixties and then the very different tempo of the world of the rock bands and the culture around them is depicted. Throughout, there is the drumbeat of emigration and the search for a better life. But Bergin has great empathy for the grit, glamour and grime of Dublin, and this is her hymn of praise to it.

As the story must at times leave the confines of Number 1, O’Rehilly Parade, the set could not be of a Georgian tenement building. Faced with this challenge, Jamie Vartan, the stage designer, has created a structure as if it were a cross-section through a modernist building. There is a semi-basement level, which is like an amphitheatre and a first floor with a smaller return, which leads by a simple metal staircase to the second floor. There is no decoration. The vertical and horizontal structures are dominant. It is an impressive structure, and it works.

The huge cast is well marshalled by director Caroline Byrne. Particular mention must be made of Sarah Morris, who creates Honor Gately in the opening sequence and then her great-granddaughter Nell Nell Considine, in the final sequences. The two roles are respectively substantial, and when combined, they mean that Morris’s contribution is critical. She was at all times convincing.  Similarly, Emmet Farrell plays one Frankie Cummins in the early part and returns towards the end to create Frankie Cummins’s grandson. The evolution of generations is important to the play, and at each interval, an easy-to-understand family tree written in chalk appears on the fire curtain. It helps to fix the intertwining of the generations, and it shows that the descendants have similar difficulties in being heard as their forebears did.

This is a play on a gargantuan scale by any standards, and it is a rare phenomenon nowadays. It is ambitious and brave. It is possible to be challenged by the number and variety of events which assail these characters, but that underlines the daily difficulties that these individuals encounter as they go about their business. The language is ribald, as is the action.  It is comic at times, it is tragic at times, but notwithstanding its scale and length, it keeps your attention.

A new play on such a scale is to be welcomed. It is a brave undertaking. It is complex, engaging, and requires concentration. It is worth seeing for all those reasons.

Photo Ros Kavanagh

Credits
Cast: Karen Ardiff
Cast: Jonathan Delaney Tynan
Cast: Carolyn Donnelly
Cast: Seán Duggan
Cast: Emmet Farrell
Cast: Clara FitzGerald
Cast: Kate Gilmore
Cast: Kenneth Hudson
Cast: Thommas Kane Byrne
Cast: Barry John Kinsella
Cast: Denise McCormack
Cast: Gus McDonagh
Cast: Joshua McEneaney
Cast: Dan Monaghan
Cast: Penny Morris
Cast: Sarah Morris
Cast: Roxanna Nic Liam
Cast: Áine Ní Laoghaire
Cast: Ericka Roe

Photo Ros Kavanagh

Writer: Barbara Bergin
Director: Caroline Byrne
Choreographer and Movement Director: Meadhbh Lyons
Set Designer: Jamie Vartan
Costume Designer : Madeleine Boyd
Lighting Designer: Aedín Cosgrove
Composer and Sound Designer: Giles Thomas
Associate Director: Éadaoin Fox
Voice Director: Andrea Ainsworth
Hair and Make Up: Leonard Daly
Assistant Set Designer: Florentina Burcea
Fight Director: Ciaran O’Grady
Intimacy Coordinator : Ruth Lehane
Casting Director: Barry Coyle
Dublin Image: Jam Art Factory
Graphic Design: AAD
Illustration of Barbara Bergin: Louise Boughton