The Loved Ones @ the Irish Rep

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The Play: The Loved Ones; a gentle drama about a woman running an Airbnb in a rural part of Ireland who finds herself uneasily hosting a quirky American tourist, the grieving widow of the innkeeper’s son who died six months earlier and a young woman who says she was the dead man’s lover and is seven months pregnant with his child

Written by: Erica Murray        Directed by: Nicola Murphy Dubey

One good thing: It's really refreshing to have adult female-centered issues—infertility, infidelity, single motherhood, sisterhood and loneliness—treated with the same gravity that issues particular to men—gay or straight—regularly get; plus the top-notch cast (Maryann Plunkett, Donna Lynne Champlin, Clare O'Malley and Alana Raquel Bowers) skillfully sidesteps potential clichés as they go about their storytelling

One not-so-great thing: The pacing is slow and the story might have been just effectively told in one act instead of two

 

 


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