Abbey, Dublin, and online
Una McKevitt’s droll domestic drama shows us a day in the life of a family dealing with the ill health of an ageing father
Reopening to live audiences for the first time in 15 months, the Abbey theatre’s warm welcome seems to come with a tongue-in-cheek smile. As audience members are individually escorted to their socially distanced seats, they are presented on stage with what they may have just left at home: a domestic interior, fitted out in realistic detail from kitchen sink to television.
Una McKevitt’s droll new play presents a single day in the life of a cooped-up family whose members are sorely in need of respite from each other. Although written during the pandemic, these characters are not actually in lockdown but tied together by the long-term illness of Frank (Bosco Hogan), who needs 24-hour care. His wife and carer, Brenda (Catherine Byrne), cannot leave the house without someone to keep an eye on him, and is fraying from exhaustion. Having chucked in her job, their adult daughter, Fiona (Liz Fitzgibbon), is back living at home – an unsatisfactory arrangement highlighted by a flying visit from her sister (Aoibhéann McCann).
