“We choose the world we live in. We make it, day by day…”

Dublin, 1850: The delicate balance at the heart of an affluent Dublin couple’s marriage and family business is challenged when two visitors come to Ireland to speak to the public about trade, money and slavery.

Exploring the dark side of global commodities like sugar, the play asks the question: if your wealth is built on exploitation, can it really be used to build a better world? 

By examining the tensions between the local and the global, as well as the personal and the political, this powerful new production written by Elizabeth Kuti and directed by Annabelle Comyn asks urgent questions about money, marriage, and morality.

Programme Note: Playwright Elizabeth Kuti 

“Looking back on where this play came from, nearly twenty-five years after I first began writing it for Rough Magic, the story of its conception becomes harder to remember and explain. A few scrapbook memories linger. There was that sign you often saw outside Bewleys’ cafés, ‘Established 1840’, sparking thoughts of how that decade saw both the horrors of famine, and the growth of a booming family business based on tea, coffee, and their natural companion, sugar.” Read the full programme note here.

The Sugar Wife: Conversations 

As part of our ongoing commitment to exploring the themes of our productions through conversation, we have invited Laura Twagirayezu to curate and host a series of round table discussions with local artists and cultural figures on themes emerging from The Sugar Wife.  

In three conversations, Laura and guests will explore some of the key themes of the play including:

Migration + Class (29 June, 6pm – 7pm)
Marriage + Desire (10 July, 6pm – 7pm)
Philanthropy + Morality (16 July, 9pm – 10pm)

Click here to learn more and reserve your spot at the Conversations.

Show Trailer 

Trailer: Aileen Power

Production Images 

Images: Ros Kavanagh

Cast Interviews 

First Look | The Sugar Wife 

Meet the Team 

Back row: Paul Keogan, Val Sherlock, Annabelle Comyn, Elizabeth Kuti, Peter Gaynor, Siobhán Cullen, Chris Walley
Front row: Paul O’Mahony, Molly O’Cathain, Tierra Porter, Síofra Ní Éilí, Esosa Ighodaro