Dublin Theatre Festival
Star of the Sea
Directed by Mairead Ni Chroinin and Ionia Ni Chroinin
Draoicht, Blanchardstown
Run concluded
Rating ****
Based on Joseph O’Connor’s bestselling historical novel, Moonfish Theatre/Taibhdearc’s free adaptation brings a guttural, raw experience to a dramatic tangle of refugees escaping Ireland on the famine ship, Star of the Sea.
The production makes a point of using Irish and English, evoking the colonial conflict in linguistic sparring. The tussle between the two, with the Anglo-Irish Merredith choking out his awkward cupla focail, and the peasants’ forelock-tugging English reverting to guttural, earthy Gaelic curses hurled at the landlord’s closed door.
At times the dialogue in Irish comes fast and vernacular, and could leave school-Irish members of the audience behind without subtitles. These are simplified: a précis of the scene at hand rather than a translation, which makes them unobtrusive as they emerge on the backdrop.
They’re hardly needed anyway: the cast are talented enough at physical theatre to give context.
The barefoot, multi-talented cast are at once writers, directors, actors, and musicians, switching as fluently between roles as between Irish and English. Zita Monahan, especially, convinces as a murderer in a trouser role before her supporting role as Lady Merredith, and back again.
Between acts, the cast adds stone after stone to a growing cairn at the front of the stage reading out the names of the Famine dead. Star of the Sea does justice to Joseph O’Connor’s original – and is vital theatre in its own right.