In this new play, both prequel and sequel to his award-winning From These Green Heights, Dermot Bolger continues his detailed and necessary history of the misunderstood Dublin working-class community of Ballymun. The first act, set in 1963 when the Ballymun area was farmland, tells the story of an unwed mother forced to emigrate to England. The second act takes place in the present, as a young Polish widow works as a mushroom picker and sends money home to her daughter.
This portrait of Ireland's new immigrant communities - isolated and stuffed into tiny Ballymun apartments - is something genuinely new on Irish stages, and feels welcome and urgent. By stitching together the experiences of the dispossessed from past generations and those of misunderstood new arrivals, Bolger urges his audience to think beyond difference.
The problem is that Bolger has far too many stories to tell, particularly in the second act - this play was screaming for a dramaturg. The first act consists mostly of flashbacks narrated directly to the audience, and the second forces the actors to speak overwritten passages of novelistic-style description. Director Ray Yeates draws committed and at times convincing performances from the six-strong cast (including the fine Polish actress Julia Krynke), but falters at the frequent points when the play demands high emotion - always communicated as people screaming at uninflected top volume.
But despite the production's sometimes agit-prop feel and lack of subtlety, the material consistently intrigues and engages. Its detailed treatment of the past reminds us of the human lives behind stories that have become cliches, and it will hopefully open the door for more stage accounts of - and eventually by - Ireland's new populations.
· Until December 3. Box office: (353) 1 883 2100.
