One of the most stimulating features of coming to Park Theatre is that you never know what you are going to encounter. There is no fixed house style – one play may be framed in absolute minimalism whereas another is decked out in meticulous period detail. It is the latter case with Consumed, the set by Lily Arnold providing an all-ecompassing vision of a comfortable, if dated, kitchen-dining room in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
This is a family drama that develops into a play with grander symbolic ambitions. This is often the way when the subject is Northern Ireland, where the personal and the political are so intimately interwined. However, dramatically this is a hard transition to bring off – for every The Ferryman there are plenty that fail to make the transition across registers. This play is one of them.
That said, there is a feast of acting here and some really witty, sassy writing for the four women performers to chomp on. For two thirds of the distance Karis Kelly alternates the comedy, acuity and poignancy with real skill, and it is only in the denouement that doubts of tone, content and transition creep in.
We begin with all the signs of a birthday party. Elderly Eileen, with a face like thunder, wears a party hat the dining table. As her bustling daughter Gilly enters, laden with shopping, we learn that this is an inter-generational 90th birthday party. The other two guests, Gilly’s daughter Jenny and grand-daughter Muireann, soon arrive. Although, as the play title suggests, a lot of food is provided, very little of it is actually consumed, as the party continually goes off the rails once past grievances emerge.
Men are either dead, disappointing or mysteriously absent in this drama – instead the focus is on the sacrifices and resulting hard face to the world that women have to present, though this is in turn challenged by the younger generation who want to make different choices. Julia Dearden, Caoimhe Farren, Andrea Irvine, Muireann Nà Fhaogáin all establish finely detailed characterisations which allow them to ring the changes on all the issues. Dearden has all the fierce resentments of an older generation that has suffered more than can be easily expressed; Irvine has much of the same but concealed under a tense determination to preserve surface order at all costs; Farren is something of a split personality between Ireland and her life in England, and has the widest emotional range to cover as a result; and Nà Fhaogáin skilfully negotiates the transition between silent and alienated teenager through to articulate and energised independent adult.
It is just a pity that the plays strives for more than this in a way that deflates and depreciates its final impact. A jarring plot shift hard to reconcile with all the credible human detail that has gone before, together with a heavy-handed side-step into the legacy of the Troubles does not deliver on the hopes and intentions of the ambition behind it. But this is still an absorbing and entertaining evening with acting and creative shaping of the highest quality.
Writer: Karis Kelly
Director: Katie Posner
Cast: Julia Dearden, Caoimhe Farren, Andrea Irvine, Muireann Nà Fhaogáin
Until 18 April 2026
85 minutes, no interval
Photo Credit: Helen Murray