This is a lovely, lyrical play. Coburn's influences are clear, the fluidity of the Irish language, the writings of James Joyce and Dylan Thomas, even Thornton Wilder's Our Town, possibly intentionally as the past is present in every scene. It begins at the tail end of the night as a few stragglers who will become out cast catch a taxi home. Seen through the cabbie's eyes as the sun rises, the city broadens and wakes as families begin to stir. In the hospital a baby is born. Three generations of a family live and remember as the day passes.

There are Kate (Claire DeBruyn) and Rob (Jono Klassen), the new parents, both gentle and a little naive. Rob is a school teacher constantly teased by his students. Then Niamh (Lauren Jane Ross), mother, doing her best, Michael (Alex Bloor) the wilful son, pulsing with unfulfilled life, Frank (Daryl Hutchings), now dead, but when living Brigid's husband. And Brigid (Kim Little) for whom the day-to-day life has become vague, but the past is vivid. The ups and downs of her long life with Frank, the joys of girlhood laughing and dancing, are the tapestry against which the others spend their day.

Five women and four men each play one of the nine named parts and a host of others. Claire Turner's costume changes are quick and also distinctive. Characters appear and disappear but who they are is rarely in doubt. The generic character of the unnamed people sets the audience at a distance which is enhanced by the structure of the play. Lit by an old streetlamp, monologues, wonderful, poetic, reflective, meandering, pointed are interspersed between the scenes. Every actor has at least one monologue and everyone shines, Irish accents rarely slipping and the rise and fall of the voices musical, engulfing the audience in a haze of words.

The set by R. Todd Parker is spare. A small raised platform upstage right serves as Brigid's sitting room and a longer one across the back adds a playing level. Open rectangles double as city windows, lit by Sam Cheng, or family picture frames. Boxes are used and moved with economy. The sound design (by Josh Osborne) is restrained. The sound of the city hums in the background, or the sound of the sea, a thunderstorm crashes once or twice. Music too is minimal having all the more impact when it comes.

From Liam Atticus Wong, who charmingly illustrates the insecurities of boys and very young men through to Kim Little, who sees Brigid through youth to old age, Joan Bryans has created an ensemble of actors with a wide range of experiences into a perfectly-balanced whole.

At the end of the play, Brigid has been taken to meet her grandson. Bewildered but game, "Lovely," she says. And it is.

©2026 Elizabeth Paterson