The Plough and the Stars – Abbey Theatre – Review
by Frank L.

An Abbey Theatre production – The Plough and the Stars
Written by Sean O’Casey
Directed by Tom Creed

Images: Ros Kavanagh
Dates: 27 February – 30 April 2026

The Plough and the Stars premiered in the Abbey in February 1926 and created a riot. Over the ensuing years, it has had many iterations in the Abbey, and this production is in celebration of its centenary. It has become part of the mainstream of Irish theatre.

It reflected at its inception the social reality of living in Dublin and the revolutionary change that had engulfed it in the previous decade. The play concentrates on the everyday lives of a small group of residents of a large tenement building from the Georgian era, which dominated the city at the time. Into this impoverished background, political violence is unleashed, and what O’Casey portrays is the grim consequences of that violence on the lives of some of those residents.

Jamie Vartan, the set designer, has eschewed the recreation of a once elegant but now run-down Georgian interior and has instead provided a floor-to-ceiling plywood wall initially. It has one small doorway, and high up, it has a single aperture. It has more in common with the exterior of a Georgian terrace than a room within it. The interior is created by a simple table, some chairs and a Victorian sofa. Subsequently, the wall retracts, and the interior of a stark pub on a revolving platform is revealed.

The principal inhabitant of the tenement is Jack Clitheroe (Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty) and his young wife Nora (Kate Gilmore). Jack is involved in the revolutionary movement as a volunteer. Nora has notions of a better life than living in a tenement. Uncle Peter (Michael Glenn Murphy) represents the revolutionary struggle from a time past and is happier dressing up in the costumes of a bygone age than doing anything more practical to make the revolution happen. The Young Covey (Thomas Kane Byrne) is also obsessed with the need for revolutionary change and has found his calling in Marxism, and has no truck with nationalism.

Also living in the tenement is Mrs Gogan (Kate Stanley Brennan) and her consumptive daughter Mollser (Evie May O’Brien), Fluther Good (Dan Monaghan), who has a penchant for alcohol and Bessie Burgess (Mary Murray), a dyed-in-the-wool loyal Unionist. She has no truck with the revolutionary shenanigans taking place in Dublin. She appears in the high-up aperture and fearlessly proclaims her counter-revolutionary rhetoric. The pub is presided over by a barman (Michael Tient). Outside in the street at a public meeting, the voice of a revolutionary speaker (Matthew Malone). In the bar, the principal customer is Rosie Redmond (Catriona Ennis), who has, because of the public meeting, been deprived of her customers.

The use of the revolving platform and the plywood wall creates a different dynamic from what one has become accustomed to. To an extent, it releases the play from the confines of Dublin at the beginning of the twentieth century even if all the characters are attired in costume of that time. But it also, in the final scenes, removes the sense of being hemmed in, surrounded with nowhere to flee, which is the reality that faces Nora and Bessie Burgess.

On leaving the theatre, my thoughts were that this production emphasises the importance of the women in the story. In particular, Bessie Burgess is far more central to the storyline than I remember. Mary Murray does a fine job. Kate Stanley Brennan captures the splendid mixture of comic morbidity and maternal care which makes the character of Mrs Gogan so engaging. The most demanding female role is that of Nora, and Kate Gilmore meets the many varied challenges which it demands.

The Abbey is right to have produced a new iteration of the Plough and the Stars to celebrate its centenary. In my opinion, they should make it the first in a new tradition. It would be for the benefit of Irish theatre if the Abbey were to celebrate one play every year by marking the centenary of its first performance with a new production or reading. The Peacock could be advantageously used for this purpose.

Credits
Jack Clitheroe: Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty
Nora Clitheroe: Kate Gilmore
Peter Flynn: Michael Glenn Murphy
The Young Covey: Thommas Kane Byrne
Bessie Burgess: Mary Murray
Mrs Gogan: Kate Stanley Brennan
Mollser: Evie May O’Brien
Fluther Good: Dan Monaghan
Lieutenant Langon: Domhnall Herdman
Captain Brennan: Ash Rizi
Corporal Stoddart: Fintan Kinsella
Sergeant Tinley: Conor Wolfe O’Hara
Rosie Redmond: Caitríona Ennis
A Bartender: Michael Tient
A Woman: Marion O’Dwyer
The Figure in the Window: Matthew Malone

Writer: Sean O’Casey
Director: Tom Creed
Set Designer: Jamie Vartan
Costume Designer: Catherine Fay
Lighting Designer: Stephen Dodd
Composer and Sound Designer: Michael John McCarthy
Movement and Intimacy Director: Sue Mythen
Fight Director: Ciaran O’Grady
Hair and Make Up: Tee Elliot
Voice Director: Andrea Ainsworth
Casting Director: Barry Coyle
Assistant Director: Éadaoin Fox
Assistant Set Designer: Florentina Burcea
Illustrator: Shane Cluskey