Playwright Barbara Bergin introduces her new work Dublin Gothic, an epic tale spanning 100 years of life in the capital and featuring a cast of 20 actors, coming to the Abbey Theatre this November.
Time has been a defining feature of the long road to realisation of Dublin Gothic. It’s been more than fifteen years since I got a hankering to write a myth-busting, loser’s history. An everyday epic spanning over one hundred years, of moments not seized, of secrets kept, being born out of time. A story from the shadows of a Dublin both strange and familiar.
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Listen: Barbara Bergin and the stars of Dublin Gothic talk to RTÉ Arena
When I began to write the outline, characters started lining up, demanding to be included, there was no stopping this parade of insistent misfits. I presumed the story was a TV series and, failing that, a radio series. When neither of those worked out, I had a TV outline, a draft of a radio script for one episode and 158 characters running around my brain: it seemed like the biggest loser in the whole enterprise was me. And still the story wouldn’t let me go, so it laid there lurking in my drawer and in the back of mind while I got on with other things. Time passed. Years.
The time this play took to arrive on stage, all the twists and turns, the losses that inform it, are integral to the piece.
When I met Jesse Weaver, then dramaturg at the Abbey, I had a half-baked idea of how it might become a piece of theatre. He encouraged me to submit it for development and has been the play’s great champion in the years since. Graham McLaren was the first person to say “I loved it and” rather than “I loved it but”. Louise Stephens’ graceful and insightful support allowed me to shape a vast, unwieldy story into the play it would become.
Dublin Gothic: ‘A story from the shadows of a Dublin both strange and familiar.’
(Pic: Jam Art Factory AAD)
From the moment I started to write the play it became obvious that theatre was what it was always fighting to be. All that time, all that waiting around, the play had been waiting on me. It was a joy to finally write it. I finished the first draft at the beginning of 2020. Then Covid struck, the world shut down, and my epic story of losers seemed destined to get lost in an even weirder iteration of time.
As the post-pandemic world slowly opened up, the new Artistic Director of the Abbey, CaitrÃona McLaughlin, offered hope, encouragement and ultimately took the risk of programming my play. I cannot thank her enough, there is nowhere else this play could have been made. Ruth McGowan’s energy and focus provided impetus at key moments, Selina O’Reilly and Emily Reilly have dropped pearls of wisdom that I will always carry with me. Craig Flaherty is a superlative producer, so he is.
Dublin Gothic cast members (L-R) Jonathan Delaney Tynan,
Roxanna Nic Liam,Karen Ardiff and Denise McCormack (Pic: Johnny Savage)
If the story was waiting to become a play, it was also waiting for its Maestra, its visionary director Caroline Byrne. Her involvement in the development of the play has been pivotal. Her insights stimulating, generous and rigorous in equal measure. As the play has rolled into production her artistry has been thrilling to witness, I could not have wished for a finer collaborator. Together with her creative team they have met the unique challenges of the play with breathtaking inventiveness and skill.
The time this play took to arrive on stage, all the twists and turns, the losses that inform it, are integral to the piece. Struggling through time against the villain of circumstance, the characters strive to create and recreate their own stories, to dignify the instinct to survive. It’s a celebration of the most creative act any of us undertake in the face of loss: to get up, to meet the moment, then the day and then the world once more.
These losers steered the ship, as you climb aboard, I hope you find yourself in good company.
The world premiere of Dublin Gothic is at the Abbey Theatre from 22nd November 2025 – 31st January 2026 – find out more here