on the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
A North American Premiere
By Kevin Barry
Directed by Ciarán O’Reilly
Starring Maeve Higgins and John Keating
“tense, funny, and mysterious…Higgins and Keating hit all the right comic and dramatic marks.” – The New Yorker
“The subject matter and Barry’s take on it make for a dark, but very, very funny evening…This is a rich little play that is well worth a trip to the theatre.” – Joe Westerfield, Newsweek
“…a very funny Maeve Higgins [and John Keating]…wonderfully agile with Barry’s comedy” – The New York Times
May and Timothy are looking after the father who has long since taken ill to bed. Their own lives are on hold and they’re not getting any younger. Should they stay and help? Or is it time for them to move on?
This dark comedy set on the northside of Cork city is about life and death, love and hate, jealousy, rage, horror, and homicidal notions – just a normal play about a family.
Kevin Barry is the multi-award-winning writer of the novels Beatlebone and City Of Bohane, and the story collections Dark Lies The Island, and There Are Little Kingdoms. Autumn Royal is his first piece written originally for stage and was acclaimed by critics and the public alike during its world premiere run at The Everyman, Cork in 2017.
Following the successful run of its world premiere in 2017, Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry returned to The Everyman, Cork in 2018 before touring throughout Ireland. Irish Repertory Theatre is delighted to reopen the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage with this North American premiere.
Read the performance program here!
“Keating – a true New york Theatre treasure – and Higgins deliver a terrific one-two punch…they really shine when they are both onstage, playing off each other like a classic comedy team” – This Week In New York
Press from previous productions:
“a brilliant play, full of wit and sentiment. Kevin Barry has long since established his reputation as a fiction writer, and his stage debut is every bit as good.” – The Irish Independent
★★★★ “a scathing searchlight on wishful thinking, enlivened by the writer’s characteristic ebullience of language, phrasing and hilariously unexpected adjectival conjunctions.” – The Irish Times