The Plays of Maura Laverty: “Liffey Lane”, “Tolka Row”, “A Tree in the Crescent”, Cathy Leeney, Deirdre McFeely (eds.)
The Plays of Maura Laverty: “Liffey Lane”, “Tolka Row”, “A Tree in the Crescent”, Cathy Leeney, Deirdre McFeely (eds.), Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2023, 288 p.
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1The Plays of Maura Laverty: “Liffey Lane”, “Tolka Row”, “A Tree in the Crescent” is a real gem for those willing to address the lack of studies on mid-20th-century Irish women playwrights. Originally written and staged between 1951 and 1952, the play-texts of Maura Laverty’s trilogy, otherwise virtually inaccessible for over seventy years, attest to the craftsmanship of a prolific and multitalented writer. Already famous for her cook books and then-considered polemical novels and columns for magazines and newspapers (some of them banned in Ireland), Laverty’s plays showcase how a writer takes to pen and paper the idiom of Dublin’s peripheral population.
2Cathy Leeney and Deirdre McFeely’s brilliant editorial work attest to their enthusiasm in bringing Laverty’s plays for wider public scrutiny. The book features a map of Laverty’s Dublin, designed by Holly Connick, some photographs of performances of the plays in 1951 and 1952, and a Tony Inglis’s drawing of his set design for Liffey Lane. It also features a preface by Christopher Fitz-Simon, producer and director of the television serial Tolka Row, an adaptation of Laverty’s homonymous play; Leeney and McFeely’s critical introduction; and the scripts of the plays with detailed information on their extant versions. Where cuts had been made for their premiere at the Gaiety by Gate Theatre Productions, the editors have combined the different available manuscripts.
3In the preface, Fitz-Simon speaks of his lifetime admiration for Laverty’s works vividly describing his experiences with her plays. As a schoolboy, he watched Laverty’s plays and marvelled at how innovative each production was. From Liffey Lane’s bare stage to Tolka Row’s “photo-realistic” set design (p. 2) and A Tree’s great tree going through its changing seasons, each new visual ambience was full of surprise. His adaptation of Tolka Row, RTÉ’s first soap opera, ran from January 1964 to June 1968 as Ireland’s “Top Ten programmes every week” (p. 3). He wanted the show to confirm “Laverty’s concern for the deprived and for the position of women, and also her abhorrence of the churlishness of Church and State towards the individual” (p. 3).
4Leeney and McFeely’s introduction, in their turn, provide comprehensive contextual information on Laverty’s life, works and their reception, as well as a thorough analysis of each play and their productions. The editors detail Laverty’s career as a prolific writer and her commitment to social activism while also shedding light on the collaborations and the politics at stake when putting the plays on stage. As they point out, each play of the trilogy is about a different living condition; each of them depicts life going up one step at a time on Dublin’s socio-economic ladder. A key point in the editors’ analysis is how the characters are connected “with the politics of physical space” (p. 16) and how much of the conflict in each play is directly tethered to their living conditions, be it due to the almost total lack of privacy in the inner-city tenements (Liffey Lane), new adjustments in family living in a new housing state (Tolka Row), or the economic strain experienced by those living in rented rooms in a middle-class location (A Tree). Each play speaks of Dublin’s urban expansion in the 1950s and the new possibilities and restraints that came along with the changing geography of the city coupled with strict Catholic values, which invariably moulded their inhabitants’ attitudes. As Leeney and McFeely point out, the canals and rivers are central motifs in the trilogy as they “act as demarcating boundaries of space and class” (p. 11).
5Liffey Lane, an adaptation of Laverty’s 1947 novel Lift Up Your Gates, like the other plays in the trilogy, is structured around a prologue, three acts and an epilogue. The melodrama dissects the hardships of the families living in the area and of the busybodies of the neighbourhood. In spite of its happy ending, the play does not fail to comment on the prejudices against women who bear children out of wedlock, on the social stigma that shadows their children’s lives or on the insidious addiction to gambling of the time. Tolka Row, both beautiful and painful, exposes the challenges of growing old, materialised in Dan Dempsey’s loving but at times trying presence in the Nolans’s residence. A Tree also explores ageing but from the perspective of dreams, unfulfilled, due to familial commitments and concerns with economic stability.
6All three plays provide sharp social commentary on life in Dublin in the 1950s. They powerfully evoke Arthur Miller’s in their in-depth psychological depiction of character and the social fate of the economically vulnerable. The book is a great resource for drama researchers, teachers and students but also for Irish studies scholars in a broader way. Most importantly, it expands the canon of Irish drama by gearing sharp critical attention to Laverty as a powerful and yet understudied playwright.
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Référence papier
Alinne Balduino P. Fernandes, « The Plays of Maura Laverty: “Liffey Lane”, “Tolka Row”, “A Tree in the Crescent”, Cathy Leeney, Deirdre McFeely (eds.) », Études irlandaises, 50-2 | 2025, 171-172.
Référence électronique
Alinne Balduino P. Fernandes, « The Plays of Maura Laverty: “Liffey Lane”, “Tolka Row”, “A Tree in the Crescent”, Cathy Leeney, Deirdre McFeely (eds.) », Études irlandaises [En ligne], 50-2 | 2025, mis en ligne le 05 décembre 2025, consulté le 18 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/21248 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15aa8
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