There are some actors who instantly makes an audience feel at ease—whose mere presence signals a certain calm and thoughtfulness at the center of a show. One of those actors is Maryann Plunkett, who, among other achievements, brought us to a remote Pacific Northwest island in Abe Koogler’s delicate Northern Exposure–esque drama Deep Blue Sound, carried us through the five-hankie Broadway musical weep-fest The Notebook, and spent more than a decade at the dinner table in Richard Nelson’s nine-play cycle, The Rhinebeck Panorama.
Now, in Erica Murray’s tender and touching drama The Loved Ones at Irish Rep, Plunkett is playing the bundled-up, buttoned-up Nell, who’s dealing with the recent death of her adult son. Then there’s the annoying but accepted presence of Airbnb guest Cheryl-Ann (Donna Lynne Champlain), an annoying but obligatory visit from daughter-in-law Orla (Clare O’Malley), and the annoying and unwelcome arrival of Gabby (Alana Raquel Bowers, star of the recent Cold War Choir Practice), a student of her late son’s at university. And oh yes—she’s seven months pregnant. Nell is just trying to boil an egg and keep everyone from finding out who everyone else is. But with the four of them—plus the cremains of her son, Robin—shoved into a small farmhouse in West Clare, Ireland, quarters are tight, and secrets (and ashes) inevitably come flying out.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
That’s right—ashes flying. It’s a strangely slapstick moment in a play otherwise built on sincerity and moments of genuine contemplation. At one point, Nell, when talking to Orla, who’s there to mark the six-month anniversary of Robin’s death, remarks almost off-handedly: “The world is not made for grieving people.” If you’ve ever felt on the verge of being swallowed up by your own grief, you know what she means. When all you feel is numbing sadness, stultifying happiness seems to be everywhere you turn.
Even the sillier moments—often involving amateur ornithologist Cheryl-Ann, the stereotypical oversharing, overbearing American tourist and the reason to avoid shared Airbnb situations—have a real truthfulness to them. “Birds don’t worry about their future or regret their 20s,” she muses. Credit to Champlain for making Cheryl-Ann more than a caricature; sure, she plays up the character’s silly side, but there’s something deeper there. She lost her sister to breast cancer, which prompted her to get a passport and fly all over the world looking for winged creatures.
Smartly (and realistically), Murray doesn’t resolve any issues or tie anything up in neat little bows; in fact, she leaves nearly everyone’s issues unresolved, and possibly even messier than when they first arrived. The only conclusion she reaches is verbalized by Cheryl-Ann, who turns out to be the wisest person in the room: “This feeling, this grief. It doesn’t have an end. It doesn’t resolve like in stories,” she tells Nell. “But you’re going to get bigger around it. And someday you’ll feel like doing things again. Things that you might even enjoy. Sounds crazy. But it happens.”
The Loved Ones opened June 23, 2026, and runs through Aug. 2. Tickets and information: irishrep.org
