Theater Review: ‘The Loved Ones’ – Overcoming Grief with Community

The Loved Ones

Whether it’s fate or mistakes that have brought four women together at a remote Irish farmhouse-turned-Airbnb, no matter. What results from their communing brings understanding, truth and an expiation of suppressed feelings and guilt. If allowed to remain buried, these would bring more self-recriminations and self-torment in Erica Murray’s sensitive drama The Loved Ones. Making its way through Irish Repertory Theatre’s summer season, the New York City premiere of the heartfelt play runs through August 2, 2026.

Nicola Murphy Dubey aptly directs Murray’s rendering of four women’s experiences of grief alone and together. The play strikes with nuanced humor and pathos. The Loved Ones‘ world premiere opened at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Ireland in 2023.

Maryann Plunkett leads a finely tuned ensemble

Maryann Plunkett shines in her inimitable way as Nell, the resilient and resourceful owner of the farmhouse, upended by the arrival of the three female visitors. A beacon of authenticity, Plunkett leads the sterling ensemble which also includes Alana Raquel Bowers as Gabby, Donna Lynn Champlin as Cheryl-Ann, and Clare O’Malley as Orla. During the course of the play, the women find each other and themselves, resolving that “things” will get better as they deal with loss and pain.

For three of the women the loss centers on Robin, who was Nell’s son, Orla’s husband, and Gabby’s college professor. We learn he died six months earlier in an accident. By degrees, as each woman enters the combination kitchen-living room communal space of Nell’s Airbnb (with neatly oufitted scenic design by Tatiana Kahvegian), we learn of their backstories.

Pregnant Gabby’s circumstances seem the most trenchant. A complete stranger, she attempts to convince Nell that she carries Robin’s baby, Nell’s granddaughter. Shocked, Nell listens, questions and processes this unbelievable truth from the unwanted, unexpected 21-year-old, who intends to stay for the night. This extraordinary “inconvenience” throws Nell off her “game” and upends her expectations as she must re-evaluate the course of her life.

More angst

Piling on the angst for Nell, her daughter-in-law Orla arrives for the weekend to memorialize the man dear to them both. They’ve agreed to spread Robin’s ashes, which Orla has brought from London, to return him to his birthplace. Meanwhile, Gabby wants to get to know her unborn baby’s grandmother.

Adding to the complications, because of Nell’s mistake in handling a calendar app, 50-something American Sheryl-Ann booked a stay to do some bird-watching the very same weekend. So Gabby and Sheryl-Ann shatter Nell’s hoped-for, much-needed quiet time of remembrance and mourning with daughter-in-law Orla.

Using breakfast as an excuse to get Gabby and Sheryl-Ann out of the farmhouse, Nell sends them to her friend’s place in town just before Orla arrives. We discover she intends to have Gabby stay at “Stevie’s” to keep her from meeting Orla and adding outrage to Orla’s grief at Robin’s loss, if Gabby unwittingly reveals the identity of her baby’s father.

Quiet time

For a time Nell’s plan works. Gabby and the loud Sheryl-Ann do not intrude on the comfort and solace Orla and Nell share in a lovely scene. Then, we find out that Orla wanted children with Robin, had miscarriages, and tried IVF. Insensitively, the doctors label her womb “inhospitable.” But Robin’s death stirs Orla to want to try again since the clinic still has his semen. When she asks for Nell’s blessing, Nell declines. The irony lands heavily when Orla points out that Nell would have a granddaughter and a shared family experience.

At that precise moment Gabby returns from breakfast announcing she can’t stay at Stevie’s because of “the flood,” and meets Orla face-to-face for the first time. Thus Orla becomes involved with Gabby’s homeless situation. In another irony, Orla suggests she stay at Nell’s since the farmhouse has rooms and she must care for herself during her pregnancy. Reluctantly, Nell agrees, not to appear suspicious, but her hesitation indicates she fears the inevitable “reveal.”

The cast makes up for a contrived-seeming setup

At times Murray’s setup of coincidences appears contrived and almost too clever. For example there is the contrast between Orla struggling in misery to get pregnant while Robin has easily impregnated Gabby. Orla desperately wants a child, while Gabby would have an abortion.

Thus, Gabby’s naïveté seems another contrivance when she ignores her body’s changes. In denial she allows the pregnancy to continue, then decides to have the baby adopted. On further discussion, Nell chides her that she will need her mother’s and family’s help, which Gabby hasn’t thought through. Fearful of her mom’s and friends’ response to her carelessness at getting pregnant, she tells no one. Instead, she has made her way to Ireland and told Robin’s mom.

For these contrivances and others Murray tries to build solid logic to fill in the gaps and diminish the obviously jerry-rigged circumstances. Thankfully, the actors create enough emotional drama that the inevitable explosion of the truth lands at an unexpected moment. Throughout, we remain engaged in the relationships that form and the emotional turns of events. And in one of the play’s greater ironies, the loud-mouthed American whose cheerfulness has been annoying proves caring and endearing. Donna Lynne Champlin’s Cheryl-Ann presents the metaphors that resonate hope and beauty by the play’s poignant conclusion.

The Loved Ones is at Irish Repertory Theatre through August 2, 2026.