NYPost.com – By Frank Scheck
One of the fortunate if trivial side effects of the end of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland was that, once it subsided, so would the flood of imported plays about it.
“Rock Doves,” the new play by Marie Jones, signals the beginning of a scary new genre: the post-troubles play.
Jones, whose “Stones in His Pockets” received acclaimed London and Broadway productions, clearly has the Irish dramatist’s affinity for offbeat, loquacious characters.
She’s populated this work with four of them, all inhabiting a derelict apartment in a run-down section of Belfast: Knacker (Marty Maguire), a hopeless alcoholic fond of watching his nonworking television set; Bella (Natalie Brown), a prostitute who, to put it kindly, has seen better days; Lillian (Tim Ruddy), who makes an unlikely living as a female impersonator, specializing in Tina Turner; and “the Boy” (Johnny Hopkins), who, clearly on the lam, bursts in one day and takes up residence.