In this new play by Bairbre Ni Chaoimh and Yvonne Quinn, the Calypso theatre company confront the mistreatment and neglect of children housed in church-run Industrial Schools in early- and mid-20th century Ireland. That these schools are a dark blot on Ireland's history is inarguable, and Calypso - a politically and socially motivated company - has done a typically admirable job in researching and uncovering this important story.
But the problem here, as with so much issue-based drama, is that they have failed to find a satisfying theatrical structure through which to convey their ideas. There is nothing about Stolen Child that has to be a play at all. In its structure and scope, it has the feel of several episodes of one of the better TV soap operas contracted into two issue-heavy hours.
This is more than the tale of one stolen child: it spans three generations of Irish women grappling with the responsibilities of adulthood and parenting. Peggy (Rosaleen Linehan), now in her 60s, was left at an Industrial School by her abusive father after her mother's death. In her early 20s, ill-informed about sexuality, she became pregnant and was forced by the nuns to give her daughter up for adoption. She now lives alone in Manchester.
In the 1980s, when the play is set, Peggy's daughter Angela (Cathy Belton), now a successful, single Dublin business owner, goes looking for her mother. She enlists the services of Mick Treacy, who is straight from the "gruff but loveable PI" aisle of the stock character shop. Scenes of their search, which include an affair with a married doctor that leads to an unexpected pregnancy and then a miscarriage, are intercut with Peggy's monologue as she tells the sad story of her life from a platform at the top of the stage.
There are enormous events packed into this story, but the characters never feel like real people - just mouthpieces for the authors' concerns. Angela is over-laden with flaws and complexities that, because they are unexplored, become troubling distractions. It is a tribute to Belton's superb acting skills that she can make this underdeveloped character quite watchable, and to the skills of Linehan that she can grip us with her story - even though she is removed from the action and given only one last scene in which to interact with another human being.
· Until September 21. Box office: 00 353 1 679 5720.
