The Scourge, a solo play written and performed by Michelle Dooley Mahon, will have its U.S. premiere at Off-Broadway's Irish Repertory Theatre in 2020. The play, in which Mahon describes how Alzheimer’s disease impacted her mother and family, is adapted from her critically acclaimed autobiographical novel Scourged.
Co-presented with the Wexford Arts Centre as part of the 2020 Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival, The Scourge will run January 22–February 2, 2020, in Irish Rep.'s downstairs W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre.
Directed by Ben Barnes (Madama Butterfly), the play received its world premiere in 2018 in the Wexford Opera Fringe Festival followed by a national tour in 2019 as part of the First Fortnight European Mental Health Art and Cultural Festival.
"Death by a thousand cuts" is how Mahon describes Alzheimer’s disease after witnessing it strike down her mother Siobhan. As she relives that time through memories both humorous and moving, she introduces her audience to a nostalgic archive of an ordinary Irish small-town family forced to become extraordinary in their attempt to cope.
