Garth Brooks with a dose of poison

* Donegal, Abbey Theatre * First Love, O'Reilly Hall, Belvedere College * Every Brilliant Thing, Pavillion Theatre Dun Laoghaire

Keith McErlean, Megan Riordan, and John Kavanagh in Donegal by Frank McGuinness at the Abbey Theatre. Photo by Ros Kavanagh

Emer O'Kelly

A new Frank McGuinness play with music: one might expect the score to be something slightly atonal, even discordant, and a mixture of the contemporary and primal. Well yah, boo, sucks: Donegal is primeval rather than primal, and the score is pure country at its best, full of rhythm and raw sentiment; while the plotline is pure traditional: an Irish family at war with no quarter given between the parties.

Irene Day is Ireland's Queen of Country. That's a given, say her family members, with the Irish predilection for refusing to face facts. In reality, her crown is rusted and battered, and only clinging by guess or by god to her lacquered bouffant hair. And since she is the sole earner in her long-tailed family of elderly mother, elderly father-in-law, unfocussed daughter, alcoholic unemployable sister and anxiety prone son-in-law, and a husband who is also her incompetent manager, the wage packet ain't going anywhere near what is required.