Savage tales

Colin Murphy on two tales of Dublin, both political, but in very different ways

Two plays of men talking us through the events leading to their deaths. Inside the east wing of Kilmainham Gaol, we share a couple of hours with Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Tom Clarke & co, the leaders of the Easter Rising. In the Peacock theatre, we meet The Howie Lee and The Rookie Lee, friends, and occasional enemies, from a west Dublin housing estate. These men share youth, intelligence, a gift for verse, and a compulsion to violence.

There is 90 years between the characters being portrayed, time for the birth and maturing of a nation. Were the men of the Rising to look upon the men of this fictional estate, what would they make of the Ireland that has grown out of their actions?

Mark O'Rowe's Howie the Rookie is a savage piece of writing, in both the traditional and contemporary senses of the word. O'Rowe makes no concession to politics: this is an intimate and very immediate piece of theatre, wholly absorbed in its own tightly delimited world. The Howie and The Rookie each talk us through the events of a couple of days in their area; though both are astute and articulate narrators, they make no reference to any society outside their own. Yet Howie the Rookie is a very political piece, an excoriating judgement on marginalisation at the edges of our capital. This new production by Jimmy Fay reprises the original casting of Aidan Kelly and Karl Shiels: both are superb, though Shiels perhaps plays to the gallery too much, exploiting the comic vulgarity in the script for easy laughs and taking a slight edge off the sickeningly compelling drama.

Donal O'Kelly's Operation Easter is a much less certain piece of work, uneven in both writing and execution. It is explicitly political – it seeks both to stimulate our interest in the motivations of the Rising's leaders, and to provoke debate on their legacy. In his exuberant desire to cram in as much as possible of these men's lives, as well as ample reflection on the state of the nation today, O'Kelly sacrifices economy and cohesion.

Yet the reward is a firebrand of a play that is both moving and edifying. O'Kelly's verse is infuriatingly indulgent at times, sorely in need of editing, his play flamboyant to the point of distraction. Yet it works – in the sobering surroundings of Kilmainham Gaol, we get to accompany this small group of doomed idealists through a reenactment of their last weeks, and that is a privilege.

Aurelia's Oratorio, finishing on Saturday at the Abbey, is a play for those who wonder sadly why the theatre has lost its magic. A kite flies a girl; a woman meets a shadow; a man fights with an empty suit jacket, and it wrestles him to the ground; a crowd of puppets watch a human show. It is no more, and no less, than a dreamlike sequence of scenes, each laced with both whimsy and subversion. It is visually stunning and beautifully performed. No politics. Just theatre. Why not?

?More: Howie the Rookie by Jimmy Fay at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin until 3 June. Booking on www.abbeytheatre.ie, 01 8787222

•Operation Easter by Donal O'Kelly at Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin until 20 May. Booking from Central Ticket Bureau on 01 872 1122

•Aurelia's Oratorio at the Abbey Theatre until 13 May. www.abbeytheatre.ie, 01 8787222