Acts of penance? Why Irish theatre is still obsessed with Catholicism

A series of works dealing with religious oppression in the country is a reminder that we can take years to treat a collective trauma

Towards the end of an annual forum of the international criticism of the Irish Theatre Magazine, Thursday, Willie White, made an interesting comment from the floor. The artistic director of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival entry suggests the humiliation felt by many in the Republic of Ireland for having been saved by the EU and the International Monetary Fund after the country's financial crisis was not entirely deserved . In his view, Ireland has long since given up the independence they had won in 1922 - not the money men, but the Catholic Church. After seeing some of the performances of the festival, you saw what he meant. On a given day, I saw three plays back to back with a living testimony of the church waiting for most of the 20 century. Laundry by ANU Productions is an impressive piece of one to one site-specific theater performed in a former Magdalene Laundry on the north side of town and into the 1990s, young women were imprisoned, usually after a fall during a single pregnancy.

still recovering from the terrible beauty of the production of Louise Lowe, I ran for Colm Tóibín Testament, a dark and melancholy monologue, cared no subject other than the Virgin Mary, which is false good ideas about the death of his son.

• then went to the ITA, the Academy recently opened the National Theatre, which organized Brokentalkers The Blue Boy, a disturbing piece of theater documentary on industrial schools in Ireland, where orders religious education of children orphaned. As the horror stories continue to emerge, even today, education is clear, it was not all they have done these schools.
• As a foreigner, I am not surprised to find much of this material reveals, and sinister. That does not surprise me, however, is how much it is also a revelation for the Irish public. One might think that a lot of Catholicism in the Irish drama - even if the three church-related shows in one day is rare, even in Dublin - but when you talk to people and see the impact that this work, you are aware of the wound is very deep and will not be much of it coming. The Blue Boy, co-director and star Gary Keegan describes growing up in the shadow of an industrial school and cites her mother, recalling the sounds of screaming children on the other side of the wall. As the country cope with what is actually a very recent past, you must accept that allowed too much to pass through the wall, just out of sight, just out of mind.

A friend suggested that these productions, far from marking the end of an era, it would be just the beginning of a wave of introspection plays examine the secret past of Ireland. As the works to come, even now, against South Africa in Northern Ireland, apartheid or to solve problems, are a reminder that human beings can take years or decades to treat our collective trauma - the theater something that is particularly adept at

Speaking as a panelist at the forum that critics said did not have the comedy of Monty Python's Life of Brian that the solemnity of Testament (sounds funny, but every other similar work put a human face in a great moment in history). Peter Crawley The Irish Times said that Life of Brian was banned in Ireland, and the greater importance Testament was that there might be in a country that only recently were accused of heresy Tóibín.

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