The audience is welcomed warmly into what seems like a concrete bunker of a performance space that is partially exposed to the elements. Centred there, on a makeshift bed, is performer Veronica Dyas, flanked by a heater that also serves as a primary light source, and surrounded by a scattering of objects, from pictures to notebooks to televisions. Here she resurrects with disarming ease and candidness, images and experiences from a long and painful coming of age. Starting with the bed she shared with her grandmother, Dyas and collaborator Niamh Burke-Kennedy structure a loose but affecting narrative about love, discovery and loss.

Dyas presses the audience into service by asking for various members to hand her objects from around the space that are then used to call up a particular moment from her life. This challenges any audience passivity, blatantly making us as much a part of the experience as Dyas’s engaging performance. However, at this showing some of the poignancy of Dyas’s writing is drowned out the cacophonous sounds of Temple Bar. While a more energized vocal performance from Dyas could have helped combat this, she opts for an unforced intimacy that at times demands our strained attention.

Jesse Weaver