Review: MOTHER YOU - A Vision of Serenity From the Midlands

When a lake collapses under a landslide of dead plants, the acidic water transforms the surrounding land into a swamp. If accumulating peat and moisture it'll morph into a bog, where fertility levels drop but the possibility for regrowth persists.

The process is explained by a gentle gardener, perched on a stretch of railway running through the vast concrete interior of a disused commercial building. Louise White's pastoral promenade in this environment, much like the removal of an old railroad in her Laois town Abbeyleix, shows that when the industrial is put aside, nature can flourish.

White offers candid glimpses of how to engage that resource. Eager students in a flower-arranging class trade etymologies of plant names: fuchsia, lavender, pheasant bush. The floral journeys from around the world signal another dispersal, that of different nationalities to arrive in Ireland.

Guides with helmet lights lead us through a dark space that in Lian Bell's atmospheric design transports between the habitats of an old train station and a community centre. The staging is really un-dramatic, preferring instead the idiom of the town hall where action is taken with tea in hand. The willful cast are nicely understated but don't mistake the scene for being idyllic; White isn't afraid to show hierarchies in groups and the sly dismissal of certain members.

Politically, it makes a case for a right to a recreational space, which in the soulless environs of an empty Smithfield office has resonance. Through a meeting of her players, White shares the tactics of The Abbeyleix Bog Project, an initiative that was successful in preserving its wildlife site from development. While this is delivered as if verbatim, there is less restraint for decorative visuals. A choir in colourful ponchos sing us out in Alma Kelliher's sweet music but not before an unbroken view of the mire is summoned, a vision of serenity.

Mother You runs at Block B Cultural Space, Smithfield as part of the Tiger Dublin Fringe until 20 Sept. For more information and tickets, see the Fringe website. Photo: Emilia Krysztofiak.