Review: Consumed
@ Park Theatre until April 18th 2026
Director: Katie Posner
Writer: Karis Kelly
Cast: Julia Dearden, Caoimhe Farren, Andrea Irvine & Muireann Ní Fhaogáin
When four women from four generations of the same clan gather in Belfast to celebrate foul-mouthed matriarch Eileen’s 90th birthday, decades of transgenerational traumas soon surface, threatening to tear the family in two. Domestic arguments about the characters’ childhoods, relationships and various mental health issues are endlessly derailed and subsumed by something much larger that is seemingly rooted in both the Great Famine and the Troubles. Writer Karis Kelly, who won the Women’s Prize for Playwriting for Consumed in 2022, posits that only by confronting the demons of the past as opposed to burying them, as generations of Irish women were and remain so wont to do, can anyone overcome what seems to be a genetic predisposition to suffering, which manifests for these characters variously as OCD, hoarding, alcoholism, anxiety, bigotry and disordered eating.
With plays that try to tackle the grand sum of trauma across generations there’s always a danger of them being overwritten or overwrought, and this is certainly an issue in the earlier stages of the play. Lines about Gen Z’s foibles land with a thud, and some of there’s a crassness to the humour that feels forced and uneasy. However, as things progress, the text develops a real depth and sophistication as Kelly draws links between the deep-rooted trauma of the past and what these women are experiencing in the modern day, resulting in an explosive final act in which the past is all but literally excavated in front of us on stage.
The stage itself, meticulously designed by Lily Arnold, too becomes a symbol for the traumas of the past. What appears to be an almost picture perfect image of a nice family lunch hides secrets on every surface and in every cupboard, the rot slowly consuming everything. As the relationships between the characters break down, so do does the stage: it first becomes disordered and messy and then, by the end, effectively destroyed, strewn with the detritus of the past with all of the order and certainty upended. In a space like the Park Theatre, with the audience so close to the action, this is particularly effective, as it feels like everything is being dismantled around us.
The performances, likewise, are strong, though bear with them at the start as, like the text, they too feel forced. However, it’s all a fiction that cannot be sustained; everybody is putting on their best face and their best behaviour, straining to be pleasant and jovial because that’s just what you do. When things deteriorate, however, the performances feel much more rooted in reality, and all four of the women on stage manage this delicate balance and shift with considerable skill. Andrea Irvine in particular, as Eileen’s daughter and the host of the party, does excellent work capturing how her character is barely holding things together and will feel instantly recognisable to anyone who grew up with an older Irish mother trying to solve every crisis with offerings of more food.
This took a little bit of time to click for me but, once it did, I thought it was superb. There’s some real intelligence in the writing and the characters, though ultimately serving as avatars for different traumas, had evolved well beyond their archetypes by the end. It’s also, for all of the misery and pain, often laugh out loud funny, and the darker and more distressing the situation becomes, the funnier it gets.
Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐