I am always amazed by the work coming out of the Irish Repertory Theater, be it the acting, directing, plays that they chose to mount, or the ultra-savvy utilization of their two stages, whether with casts of one or two or ensembles of twenty. After making a goodly number of wonderful plays available via live streaming during COVID, the Rep made a perfect choice to return to live theater with Ken Barry’s Autumn Royal, The next, Belfast Girls, proves another sure-fire winner.
Though all the play’s action takes place on the transport ship Inchinnan bound for Australia in 1848, the majority of the two-act, 12-scene play with one intermission takes place in a small, cramped, and windowless five-bunk-bed cabin in the ship’s steerage, and to a lesser degree on the ship’s deck where the girls can be found dreamingly contemplating their future.
As the playwright notes, "Between the years 1848 and 1851 over four thousand Irish females took passage on ships from Ireland to Australia under the Orphan Emigration Scheme, established by Earl Grey. This action had the effect of relieving many of the workhouses and poorhouses of Ireland (already full to the brim with people seeking respite from the ravages of the ‘Great Famine’), and of providing ‘new blood’ for the Colonies – wives, servants, farm-workers. The women who left were more generally known as ‘orphan girls,’ though many were neither orphans or, strictly speaking, girls. The most notorious and riotous amongst these – both in transit and on arrival in Australia – were known as the Belfast girls."
As Belfast Girls the play unfolds, we are introduced, one and two at a time, to the five young Irish women. Most, except for Molly, the last to arrive to the cabin, seem to know all about the sordid life they all led in Belfast, which occasionally included prostitution to make ends meet.
There’s Judith (Caroline Strange), daughter of a Jamaican woman and an Irish man. In her twenties, she is the Alpha of the group, and it is she, when the girls are full of doubt about leaving their homeland, who reminds them that there is nothing for them in Ireland. As her mantra goes, from now on they are now to be “mistresses of their own destiny.” All will be better when they get to Australia, she tells them.
”Fat Hannah” (Mary Mallen), as the other girls call her, is something of a singer. To calm her anxiety and lessen the interminable boredom for everybody, she frequently breaks into song. Also on hand are tough Ellen Clark (Labhaoise Magee), nicknamed stupid; Sarah Jane White (Sarah Street), who has a brother waiting for her in Sydney; and the youngest of the lot, 17-year-old Molly Duncan (Aida Leventaki). Bookish to the nth degree and an evangelist at heart, Molly is given to quoting Marx and Engels, and reading the poetry of Shelley out loud.
By the end of the first act and its bombardment with character-revealing details – a couple of threatening knife fights, fast-changing alliances, a stomach-turning hurricane that tosses the girls in the air like ragdolls, and the appearance of a large rat that forces girls to climb into each other’s beds for comfort, we feel we know these girls like the back of our hand. However, act two, which has more twists than a pretzel, several fights, changes of alliances, a shipboard love affair, revealed secrets and lies, and a near-lynching of one of the girls from the ship’s masthead, proves us shockingly wrong.
Brilliantly supporting a cornucopia of such sudden and unexpected happenings is the sure hand of director Nicola Murphy. Adding much authenticity to this story-telling journey, which serves to turn us audience into passengers, is Chika Shimizu’s set, China Lee’s just-so lighting, and Caroline Eng’s remarkably true-to-life sound design, which features the plaintive cry of seagulls, lapping water, crashing waves, and the sound of a wild party going on in adjacent quarters. As I left the theater, thoughts of this play being made into a movie crossed my mind.
