Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Poor

Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly. Image, Ste Murray

****

Shameless meets Educating Rita in Sonya Kelly's Poor, an adaptation of Katriona O’Sullivan's best selling autobiography from 2023. Telling of O’Sullivan’s escape from poverty in Coventry and Birmingham, her relationship with her addictive parents, and her move to Ireland where she eventually became a Professor. Kelly's patchy, hurried and clunky script succeeding in pushing all the emotional buttons. Which director Róisín McBrinn stages with theatrical inventiveness married to a cinematic eye. Poor made vivid and memorable by an extraordinary ensemble. So good you could give them the terms and conditions for your smart phone and they could make it sing.

Holly Lawlor and Aisling O'Mara in Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly. Image, Ste Murray

In Hamlet the play’s the thing. In Poor it's the book. Kelly's play following O'Sullivan's book like Agnes DeMille. Wednesday Addams’s loving stalker who wants to look, sound and be like her idol, fearful of offending her. Kelly’s excess of reverence resulting in a rollercoaster ride in which O’Sullivan’s life is framed by chapter numbers like dear diary entries. Reading like bullet points on a social workers report. A highlight reel playing snippets from O’Sullivan’s greatest hits: Dad’s addiction and prison sentences, Mam’s sex work and neglect, failed fresh starts and disastrous holidays, the wide eyed innocence of a young girl and the harrowing rape of a child. Not that it's all darkness and gloom. While Mammy chases the dragon and Daddy shoots up on the settee, a kindly teacher discreetly provides the young O'Sullivan with practical care. Another provides encouragement towards education. A State home where the young O'Sullivan is placed for six months offers a glimpse of how life might be. It will take O'Sullivan time, tragedy and a troubled road to get there. To find forgiveness for her parents. To forgive herself. A journey marked by her older self taking care to her younger self, and her younger self reminding her of who she is.

Hilda Fay, Holly Lawlor and ThommasKane Byrne in Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly. Image, Ste Murray

Flashing past at breakneck speed, much of the novel’s depth gets lost in a litany of information. Much of it reclaimed by a superlative cast. Along with a superb conceit. An excellent Ashling O'Mara as the older Katriona plays against a gutsy Holly Lawlor (Thursdays performance), or Pippa Owens, both rotating the role as O’Sullivan’s child self. Kelly’s dynamic duo sharing the same scene a device that keeps on giving. As does Aidan Kelly, stupendous as chain-smoking, drug addict Dad, Tony, who becomes holier than thou when reformed. O’Sullivan’s other familial lynchpin the incomparable Hilda Fay as mother Tilly. Fay’s grounded, powerful presence enriching every scene she plays, cutting through the cartoon quality of Kelly’s script to reveal the angry, red hearted hurt of a woman who never got to be her own story for having been trained not to be rude.

Mary Murray, Ghaliah Conroy, Aisling O'Mara, Thommas Kane Byrne and Keiren Hamilton-Amos in Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly. Image, Ste Murray

For a show like Poor to effectvely deliver its supporting ensemble needs to match its impressive leads. In Ghaliah Conroy, Kieren Hamilton-Amos, Thommas Kane Byrne and Mary Murray Poor possesses one of the finest supporting ensembles, each demonstrating impressive range in countless roles and an enviable ability to change costumes in a second. Laura Campbell’s diverse array of costumes, Paul Keogan's superb lights, Sinéad Diskin’s retro sound design and Aedín Cosgrove’s Brady Bunch boxed set, featuring one of the most versatile couches to grace a stage, add immeasurably to the richness of the production. Which McBrinn's direction coalesces into a snappily paced whole.

Aisling O'Mara in Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly. Image, Ste Murray

For some, Poor will seem to skate close to poverty porn. A working class tale of harrowing abuse told in one of the few formats permitted to working class people. The Rocky story. That of the singular hero overcoming all odds. Like Educating Rita, Erin Brockovich or Erin from Brassic, O’Sullivan is the woman smarter and better than her surroundings. A woman raped, abused, neglected caught in a cycle of generational trauma, yet whose very escape can be seen to undermine claims that there's no way out of poverty. Hard work will get you there. Yet O'Sullivan is keen to point out she is the exception, not the rule. That she did not do it on her own. That the Home she stayed in for six months, and the influential teachers who cared, show the System works when it genuinely chooses to. When it doesn’t, the poor are damned, never mind doomed. Like Tilly, whose innocence was shattered, her soul mortally wounded by the normalised abuse of young girls. A horror made vivid by Fay’s consummate performance charting the peaks and troughs of a woman who couldn’t break free. Burdened by the weight of abuse which slowly, over time, breaks her down till there’s nothing left but drink to block out the memories and drugs to numb the pain. O’Mara’s energised performance capturing the heart of Poor, Fay laying bare its shattered soul.

Aisling O'Mara in Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly. Image, Ste Murray

If its sentimental ending sugarcoats realities, again this misses the point. Structurally, Poor is a monologue interrupted by memories. The monologue of a resilient and remarkable woman not liberated, but free in the wild ambitions of her soul. Who fought and crawled her way out of a poverty of mind, body and spirit as well as financial, political, and systemic poverty. Who nearly didn’t make it and who wants to help those who may not be as resilient. A little uplift, a little hope, a little singing, and a whole lotta love can go a long way to sustaining a wounded soul when the road ahead is darkest.

Poor, by Katriona O’Sullivan, adapted by Sonya Kelly from O’Sullivan’s bestselling memoir, directed by Róisín McBrinn, runs at The Gate Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2025 until November 2.

For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2025 or The Gate