Lady Gregory's GRANIA To Debut at the Abbey Theatre During the Dublin Theatre Festival

The Abbey Theatre has announced details of its Dublin Theatre Festival offering, including work by Lady Gregory in a programme that brings together canonical and contemporary work, celebrating the breadth of artistic ambition to be found at the National Theatre of Ireland. Grania, written by Lady Gregory, will run from Saturday, 21st September to Saturday, 26th October, in its first ever production on the national stage.

"You and I together could have changed the world entirely."

Written more than a century ago and reimagined for the Abbey Stage in a contemporary context by Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre Caitríona McLaughlin, Grania is based on the Irish legend of Gráinne, Diarmuid and Fionn; a story of love, lust, power and desire. Gráinne and Fionn, a royal couple in waiting, are due to be wed before Fionn's fiercest warrior Diarmuid returns, who Gráinne quickly falls for and runs away with. Friends are pitted against each other while a woman creates her own destiny, laying bare the tension between duty and passion.

Commenting on the announcement, Co-Director of the Abbey Theatre, Artistic Director Caitríona McLaughlin said: "The Irish story throughout history is a story of displacement and exile. Of an existence eked out on the fringes. A narrative so embedded in our literature and music, our culture and psyche, that it seems astonishing how often we forget it - but then memory is unreliable. Diarmuid and Gráinne is considered one of the greatest love stories of all time. In Grania, Lady Gregory's version certainly is that, but not in the way you might think. I've wanted to direct it for a long time and a play about a couple living in exile, fleeing for their lives and living in a tent and by their wits seemed pertinent.

"I believe Irish audiences don't like to be told what to think. Personally, I always like to come at an issue askance, creating space to consider and reflect. [Alongside SAFE HOUSE on the Peacock Stage], these two productions are very consciously paired to create space for our audiences to reflect on our past and those who had to flee our shores, for a myriad of reasons, and on our present and those we're asked to shelter, also for a myriad of reasons. At the same time, they are simply two brilliant, intriguing, entertaining and very different plays and can be engaged with purely for pleasure and for a great story."

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