Little Women at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast

 LITTLE WOMEN by Louis May Alcott directed by Emily Foran at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast on the 7th February 2024

Marty Breen, Maura Campbell, Maura Bird and Tara Cush in Little Women

The main theme of Little Women is stated at the beginning of this adapted version of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, “men have to work and women have to marry for money.”  It seems that Little Women will be a story in the Jane Austen mould, but this is not to be.  The narrative is overshadowed by the events of the American Civil War.  The head of the family, Mr March, has gone to the front to serve as a chaplain in the Union army.  Details of tumultuous battles like Bull Run, fought in Virginia, emerge, but the war hardly impinges on the lives of the four March sisters, Amy, Jo, Beth and Meg and their mother Abigail.  The story concerns the upbringing and development of young women, their quest for individuality, fulfilment, and independence.

Marty Breen in Little Women at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast


The novelistic and autobiographical source of the play is never far away, and the real aim of the work is winter jollification and merriment which, of course, is entirely fulfilled.    The story begins at Xmas with an Xmas tree, decorations, and Xmas carols being sung and performed on piano.  The sisters work together, perform together, and, sometimes, fall out together.  There are signs of hard times, Jo’s dress is torn and patched with dark, contrasting materials.  The sisters are committed to helping the poor families of the neighbourhood through courses and private tuition.  Eventually Beth succumbs to scarlet fever when on one of these visits, an illness treated today with anti-biotics, but for which there was no cure in the 19th century. The seasons are also important as they are in all family melodramas.  Nature’s pattern somehow reinforces the sense of continuity and tradition.  The girls wear dresses which echo the colours of the seasons.  They are also displayed in the backdrop which subtly alters throughout the play.

Ruby Campbell in Little Women at the Lyric Theatre


The set décor is sparsely decorative, a cross section of a house with two stories, bare trees, and sky.  Sometimes the sky darkens and a full moon emerges.  The division between upstairs, a private space for Jo where her imagination can find freedom and she the privacy she craves, and downstairs, another world where the sisters mingle together.  Jo, played in a focussed and committed manner by Marty Breen, is the central character of the drama.  She clearly stands in for the author, it is her determination to break away from a pre-determined marriage to Laurie or Theodore Laurence played by Cillian Lenaghan, that is the fulcrum of the drama.  Laurie is a character limited by circumstance and gender.  Eventually he marries Jo’s sister Amy, who leaves for Europe with rich aunt March.  In Europe she visits Ireland, the Lyceum theatre in London to see Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Paris.  Jo gravitates to New York, taking up a position as a governess, meeting Professor Friedrich Bhaer played by Ash Rizi.  Bhaer has left Berlin, one of the burgeoning populous of newly arrived immigrants, seeking to re-establish their lives in the New World.  Jo is jealous of Amy’s travail to the Old World since she had hoped to visit such places as the library in Heidelberg, but Bhaer reminds her that many Europeans are seeking to escape, dreaming only of New York.  Jo has begun writing trashy, sensationalist fiction for emolument, something which Bhaer disapproves of.

Cillian Lenaghan in Little Women at the Lyric Theatre


Music is an important counterpoint to the unfolding narrative, in terms of the traditional hymns and carols that the sisters sing, marking the passing of seasons and festivals, the polka music heard distantly at the local dance, and a muted score played discretely between scenes.  John Brook, Laurie’s tutor, asks Meg for marriage as he departs for the front.  Meg is reluctant, declaring that 200,000 have already died and the Union army is in retreat.  Eventually Meg marries Laurie’s tutor John Brook and has twins.  Their father is wounded and taken to a field hospital near Washington.  Jo sacrifices her long tresses for $25, money sent to make her fathers convalescence more comfortable.  The ensemble cast orchestrates the action seamlessly, providing the audience with amusement, engagement, and fun.

Ruby Campbell and Shaun Blaney in Little Women


Little Women is clearly a play for our time, when war and crisis are never far away.  It celebrates duty, compassion, and the desire to take a stand and make life distinctive and personal.

Marty Breen in Little Women at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast


Paul Murphy, Lyric theatre, February 2024

Tara Cush in Little Women at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast


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