Eileen (Julia Dearden) is turning 90 and her daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) is throwing a birthday lunch with her daughter Jenny (Caoimhe Farren) and her teenage daughter Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin) as their party-hatted guests. As four generations of Northern Irish women take a seat at the kitchen table, family secrets are spilled, and the unspoken legacy of inherited trauma makes itself heard. In theory.
A homey, detailed set by Lily Arnold implies naturalistic drama, but this new work by Karis Kelly is heightened and heavy on cliché. Each woman is a caricature of her generation; bland Stepford Wives allegations are levied at manic host Gilly, and low-hanging oat milk jokes thrown at Gen Z Muireann, who is given no personality beyond a Boomer’s bingo of dietary requirements and thinly progressive politics.
Directed by Katie Posner, arguments flare and just as quickly subside in a numbing push-and-pull, so much so that the plot’s violent crescendo is simply too loud and lacking in emotional grounding. Consumed tackles troubling, important subject matter with an over-egged central metaphor; a dreamlike final act could have brought nuance to how Eileen and Muireann understand each other, but instead rushes to exorcise the family’s ghost, rather than to understand it.
Consumed, Traverse Theatre, until 24 Aug (not 4, 11, 18), various times