Little Gem in The Abbey Theatre

On the Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre last night, I was treated to a truly hilarious, but honestly moving play, Little Gem. With no shame, I’ll admit to having shed a couple of tears only to be hurled in the other direction to have the laughter pour out of me.

This is not high-brow entertainment. Though tight, smart and brilliantly staged, it’s one of the most accessible Irish plays I’ve seen in some time. It really is a play for everyman, or indeed everywoman, as it centres on the lives of three generations of Dublin women - Amber, her mother Lorraine and the show-stealing grandmother Kay.

In Elaine Murphy’s first full-length play Kay (a heartbreaking Anita Reeves) is past 60, but not dead, as her constantly itching nether regions and desperation for a good old fashioned orgasm reminds her. Her daughter Lorraine (Hilda Fay) is sent to “talk to someone” after having a breakdown in work, driven there by memories of her junkie husband and having to care for her stroke addled father. And then then there the flighty Amber (Sarah Greene) who finds herself up the duff without a fella.

The simple set allows each of the women to tell their individual stories, opening with Amber talking about her Debs night, Lorraine giving out about the customers in work and Kay moaning that she misses the sex now that her husband Gem isn’t well. The Dub accents and colloquialisms lend an authentic natural humour to Murphy’s fast paced dialogue. A somewhat mis-cast Sarah Greene takes some time to get into her stride. In in a role that required her to deliver so many heavy monologues loaded with teenage aggression, emotion grit and shocking revelations, her lines never come across as well as they do for Hilda Fay and Anita Reeves. Fay grabs you from her opening lines and never lets go.

“Yer wan…’the wrecker’ … is shaking out all the neatly folded polo necks and throwing them back onto the shelf.”

Anita Reeves as Kay

While most of the play is an out-and-out comedy toying with drama, it is the final 20 minutes of the play that we see true greatness. While the humour is never abandoned, the sadness and heartbreak that these three women must endure plays out in front of us and Anita Reeves shines. I last saw Reeves in Sweeney Todd at the Gate Theatre. She was my first Mrs. Lovett and played the part with such vigour that I never forgot her. Seeing her in this very different, emotionally charged role of Kay, she proved herself to be one of Ireland’s greatest stage actresses. She actually brought me to tears and at one point I had to look away from the stage, for fear I would start blubbing. Wonderful.

While there is so much in this play that goes right, for Reeves alone I will return to see this play and I urge everyone to take the chance and try catch it too.

It plays at the Peacock in The Abbey until February 27th. Tickets are from €20 and can be booked online or from the Abbey Box office at +353 (0)1 87 87 222.

Following its run in the Peacock, Little Gem will tour Ireland, visiting Draíocht in Blanchardstown, The George Bernard Shaw Theatre in Carlow, The Belltable in Limerick, The Axis, Ballymun and the Civic Theatre, Tallaght.