In Milseog an tSamhraidh, presented by Amharclann de hIde, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, from the Famine official history and nationalist myth, has made a play of what she was left with: women, guilt, pregnancy, deceit, infertility, love, hunger.
The story of the Irish who couldn't make the big leap to the New World and ended up in Wales isn't part of the official version of the Famine, but a small trail of folklore led Ni Dhuibhne to it. Her characters, Cait and Brid are fleeing the shame of their own response to the Famine, as much as the Famine itself. The first act of the play focuses on their arrival at the make-shift home of another family of Irish refugees. Their search for love wreaks havoc in that home; they leave it behind and continue their journey.
This leads them to the Ladies of Llangollen, who are also refugees from Ireland; they did not, perhaps, share the experience of physical hunger with the two younger women, but they did share their need to find love. In the paradise they created for themselves in Wales, they could be together - in Ireland, it wasn't possible.
In Wales, there is food, both material and spiritual - the imagery of food reoccurs throughout this redemption tale, from the summer pudding or "milseog an tSamhraidh" of the title, to the milk which Brid finds in her breast for a child which is not hers.
It isn't a story with any great narrative drive once the main seduction scene is over, and its elements are bound together too loosely. However, as one would expect of Ni Dhuibhne's work, it is always compelling because of its great emotional truth.
It could still have fallen apart without direction as sure as Kathy McArdle's. She makes full use of Ben Hennessy's inventive set. Her greatest feat, of course, has been to draw excellent performances in difficult roles from her cast, particularly Cathy Belton as pregnant cabin-dweller and expiring lady, Lesley Conroy as a suitably gauche Brid and Sile Ni Chonaonaigh as her big sister, Cait.
Runs until Saturday.
The Dublin Theatre Festival booking number is 01-8748525
