It is good news that David Hare's 1995 play is being produced for the first time in Ireland - not because there is a debate raging here about the responsibilities of the haves to the have-nots, but because there should be.
It is not hard to map Tom Sergeant, Hare's up-from-the-working-classes hotshot restaurateur onto nouveau-riche Ireland, and within minutes of this theatre there are areas of miserable deprivation, where many Kyras work to better the lives of children for crap pay and little thanks.
Ireland doesn't have much of a tradition of plays about social responsibility, and one hopes that the way Hare turns that abstract idea into a complex, troubling and very human drama will prove an inspiration.
But what about the way the personal and the social reflect each other? Don't Kyra's glorious socialist rants go on just a bit too long? She slept with Tom for six years while virtually living as part of his family, and walked out without looking back when his wife found out.
Now, as she has to admit, part of her motivation behind living in a run-down flat and teaching socially disadvantaged children is that she is "living her anger"- anger at herself and her choices, at the way things turned out, at the world. She's no saint, and that's brilliant: but, frankly, at points during the second act, she feels too much like the mouthpiece for Hare's politics. This gets in the way of some of the play's subtle and mature insights, like Kyra's argument that Tom is addicted to progress, and that, for many people, just being where they are is enough.
The larger point is that Hare has written a smart play for grown-ups, and we need more of those in Ireland. Landmark Productions does the work a great service: actors Owen Roe and Cathy Belton are superb, Michael Caven's direction elegant and the production values high-class.
· Until February 7. Box office: 00 353 1 881 9613.
