Save The Kiddies

Markievicz Leisure Centre

***

Although it takes the audience, by and by, to a place that a number of us have already visited, this performance in Anu's enveloping Thirteen project takes a more distinctive route. Our principle guide here is Dora Montefiore, whom Bairbre Ní Chaoimh plays with wide-eyed determination, her sense of purpose edged with hysteria. It's a wise portrayal, as Montefiore's motive for moving the children of strikers to English foster homes was undermined as Protestant proselytising by the Irish clergy.

This appropriately frantic promenade through Dublin is a snapshot of that pandemonium, but its real heart is in Bairbre Ní hAodha’s performance as a steely Dublin mother, which seems to reveal more humanity against high stakes from every angle it can be witnessed. A private meeting with Helena Moloney (Derbhle Crotty), in a dressing room, brings the news of one of the fatalities of Bloody Sunday: Alice Brady. Though it seems strange – amid all the tragedies of this fateful day – to restrict this chapter to women only, Louise Lowe’s staggeringly well choreographed confluence of three separate performances brings a sense that everything – and everyone – is keenly connected.

Until Sep 21