Dublin Gothic Review – The Losers’ Epic History of the City Traces 100 Years of Family Life | stage

IIn Barbara Bergin’s epic History of the Losers in Dublin, street names tell their own story. Tosser’s Pot leads to Cutpurse, then from Pokes Alley to Kiphouse Row. For the residents of the inner-city apartment building where the action begins in 1880, choices are starkly restricted and their lives are cut short by poverty, disease, or violence.

The narrative covers 100 years of life in this house, and follows four families, whose lives are intertwined across generations, with recurring trauma – for women in particular – echoing the spirit of Sean O’Casey. The historical background is outlined in broad strokes: from slum strikes to revolution and war, through the early years of the independent state, to the heroin and HIV/AIDS crises of the 1980s.

Bergin creates a thread through time in the spirited Onur Gately (Sarah Morris), a sex worker determined to defy her circumstances as a “bad girl,” whose granddaughter, also played convincingly by Morris, breaks old patterns and sets out to write a novel.

Honor’s son “blubberpus” (Thomas Kean Byrne) brings cheerful comedy to an occasional patriotic role in the Easter Rising of 1916. He is one of a number of historical figures that Bergin incorporates to distinctly anti-heroic effect: we meet loosely symbolic incarnations of James Joyce, Padraig Pearce, and Brendan Behan, as well as a Bob Geldof/Bono-like singer. The rogues’ gallery of abusive, dishonest, or pathetic men—politicians, priests, profligate writers—runs past, sacrificing ingenuity to narrative momentum.

With a dynamic ensemble of 19 people on stage throughout, the storytelling is subtle and expansive – and at times, claustrophobic. The multi-talented cast serves as an ever-changing chorus who takes turns to narrate the plot, and they are in a whirlwind of exposition and costume changes, playing more than 120 characters in three and a half hours.

With so much narrative to cram, the format often gets in the way of director Carolyn Byrne’s ability to do more than maneuver the cast around Jimmy Vartan’s imposing set. By creating a cross-section of the building, the stacked design offers exciting possibilities, which have not been fully realized. Despite the ambitious scope, commitment and powerful energy of this production, its crowded canvas leaves little room for new visions.