— Ya'll be sorry for this, Hester Swayne.
— We all will.

In this beautiful play — the Abbey Theatre's 1998 Dublin Theatre Festival offering — Marina Carr deepens her exploration into the darkness of people.

The scorn of Hester Swayne, a woman abandoned once and discarded later, threatens a whole community as she awaits her mother's return to the Bog of Cats: 'God's punishing me but I won't take his blows lyin' down.'

Forgiveness, vengeance and desperate forces figure in the tangled history embodied in her own powerful drama as it makes its way through heartbreak and — occasionally — hilarity, and its secrets unfold towards its tragic conclusion.