A pandemic exposes deep social injustices in Emma Donoghue’s new play, set in Dublin during the Spanish influenza outbreak of 1918. Over three tumultuous days in a maternity hospital, staff attempt to cope with emergency births. One teenager, Mary (Ciara Byrne), has no inkling of what childbirth involves; Honor (Úna Kavanagh), a destitute, unmarried woman, is delirious; and the complaints of the middle-class Della (India Mullen) provide much of the initial comedy.
Adapting her own novel for the stage, Donoghue has crammed in multiple themes and detailed information: not only on the deadly impact of fever, but also on the political and social upheaval in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising – and the balance isn’t always successful.
While the real historical figure of Dr Kathleen Lynn (Maeve Fitzgerald) represents progress, the emphasis here is on women’s constrained lives, reinforced by a steely nun, Sister Luke (Ruth McCabe). Through the characters of Honor and the hospital assistant, Bridie (Ghaliah Conroy), we are shown the cruelty of religious-run institutions, where women and children were at the mercy of nuns like Sister Luke, whose character seems reductively emblematic of the entire institutional regime. Likewise, Lynn, a suffragist, free-thinker and proud activist for an independent Ireland, is the sometimes didactic mouthpiece for commentary on child poverty, slums, mortality rates.
Sarah Morris brings compelling warmth to the central role of the compassionate nurse, Julia, dealing with crises: transfusing her own blood to save one patient, and comforting another in her grief. When a rapport develops between Julia and Bridie, their mutual attraction is a respite from grim reality. As they look out at the night sky, vividly evoked by Alyson Cummins’ set and Sinéad Wallace’s lighting design, there is a moment of tenderness, even hope. In Louise Lowe’s delicate direction, the scene is affecting – but it is punctured somewhat by Bridie’s account of growing up in a Magdalene Laundry, a description that leans too heavily on Donoghue’s research.
Yet what shines through, especially in the fine, committed performances, is a passionate urge for a better, fairer society: Kathleen Lynn’s vision of a future secular republic where women have choices and the children of the poor are fully cared for.
