My Take on ‘The Risen People’ – Sept 11th 2014
“I remember approaching the Abbey theatre by foot on a cold September evening, physically braced for a cold night whilst emotionally braced for a dark evening. I anticipated a story of poverty-stricken working class victims, a backdrop of Dickensian tenements and a host of heart rending moments from the Lockout. My dour expectations were surprisingly disrupted.

I was instead, treated to a series of colourful Dublin snapshots, which were also thoughtful and respectful. A series of dynamic moments set against multimedia-ed newsreels injected here and there with bawdy music-hall song, dance and a live band hard at work.

Stimuli, that set to work discombobulating my assumptions. I laughed along and surrendered. I formed a genuine relationship with the inhabitants. I empathised with their sometime vigorous beliefs, human flakiness, tenuous relationships and glimpsed the dignity of their fragile dreams.

I laughed, but I also sighed. I watched the colour drain from their lives, hopes, as it did from the set itself. Melodies grew more haunting and languid as the play progressed and winter descended on-stage in well worn pathetic fallacy.

The play ended, the doors opened, I walked out into the cold September evening once more, filled with the heat of re-found humanity. Dublin’s history was made flesh for me.”