Thin plotting can’t dampen Katie Roche’s raw power

Teresa Deevy’s overtly feminist play must have shocked audiences when it premiered at the Abbey in 1936

Sean Campion, Caoilfhionn Dunne and Siobhan McSweeney in the Abbey’s production of Katie Roche Pic: Ros Kavanagh

Katie Roche

By Teresa Deevy

Abbey Theatre, Dublin

Runs until September 23

Rating:****

Katie Roche is out of control. She may be a mere servant girl with no idea of who her parents were, but this dangerously free spirit believes she was born to do great things. When people in authority warn her to be good, she laughs in their faces and responds: “I’ll be a great woman . . . I’ll make ...