Porcelain points to potential of new voice in Irish theatre

Directed at a high emotional pitch by Cathal Cleary, Porcelain crams 26 scenes into 90 minutes without an interval, and is certainly never dull.

Bamshad Abedi-Amin and Lola Petticrew in Porcelain by Margaret Perry Pic: Ros Kavanagh

Porcelain

By Margaret Perry

Abbey Theatre (Peacock Stage), Dublin

Rating: ***

Runs until March 10

‘Are you a witch, or are you a fairy, or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?” This old rhyme has always fascinated Hat (Lola Petticrew), a fragile young mother at the heart of Margaret Perry’s occasionally crude but often powerful new play Porcelain.

Hat comes from the same part of Co Tipperary where, in 1895, a labourer ...