Women, we are often told, get written out of the history books. Maureen McManus has come up with a perfect example in Anna Parnell, sister of the famous Irish nationalist politician. The result is a passionately feminist and ferociously partial play that celebrates the contribution of militant women to Irish history.
Set in the period from 1879 to 1882, McManus's play deals with Anna Parnell's formation of the Ladies' Land League. While her brother, Charles, was playing politics at Westminster, or in prison, Anna and her team were actively fighting the land war prompted by local rent rises at a time of potential famine: supporting tenants suff ering wrongful eviction and standing up to vindictive Anglo-Irish landowners.
In rescuing Anna Parnell from oblivion, McManus needlessly vilifies her brother. She alleges that he betrayed the Ladies' Land League, bullied Anna and destroyed her sister's private happiness, but I'd have thought you have to give Parnell some credit for his political skill in uniting the Fenians and the Catholic church in pursuit of Home Rule.
But McManus's purpose is to laud the achievements of forgotten Irish women, and this she does in a series of punchy scenes suggesting that, while men dream, women get down to work. It's a rolled-up-sleeves kind of play punctuated, in John Terry's swift-moving production, with a wealth of Irish song. Lucianne McEvoy lends Anna exactly the right bright-eyed singlemindedness, and there is vigorous support from Tracey Kearney as an incipient republican and Rebecca Mordan, who initiated the whole project for Scary Little Girls, as a politicised poet. It is not the subtlest of plays, but it certainly fulfils its aim of raising consciousness.
· Until April 14. Box office: 0870 4000 838.
