SEBASTIAN Barry's new play is overlong, at times overwritten and in places sloppily structured. Or so it seems after an hour and a half.

And then, in a final scene directed and performed with deft beauty, the play coalesces, wonderfully.

Any restlessness in the audience (exacerbated by the Tivoli's appallingly cramped seating) dissipates. Any doubts as to the direction or intention of the play disappear. As soon as it is over, some in the audience rise to their feet, and then more, till most of the auditorium is standing . . . cynics and critics, perhaps, excluded.

This is an opening night crowd on home territory, but the response feels genuine. Barry recently described the play as a "homecoming" for him in its focus on Dublin; it is also something of a homecoming for him to the Irish stage, and it is fitting that it should be warmly received.

His story is the story of Janet and Joe Brady, a couple from the north inner city, who marry and have their kids, young, in the late 1980s/early '90s. Parnell Street is the axis of their lives . . . they drink and shop there, he steals from cars there, their children play on the pavement outside, and cause trouble on North Great George's Street around the corner. On the night Ireland lose to Italy in the 1990 World Cup, Joe goes home and beats his wife to a pulp. She flees with the children to the local women's shelter and never goes back. He falls apart, gets himself a heroin habit, and finds himself in the Joy. They tell their story in overlapping monologues, talking to us from 1999.

The play grew out of a short piece Barry wrote for an event organised by Fishamble to highlight violence against women, in aid of Amnesty. Its relentless tracing of the contours of urban dereliction . . . petty theft, alcohol, wife-beating, drugs, serious crime, violence, prison . . .the play betrays its origins as a piece of issue-based drama. But Barry is an irrepressible romantic, or a humanist. No matter how heavy the "issues", he labours hard to unearth human characters strong enough to carry those issues. This was the triumph of his Great War novel, A Long Long Way, and it is the core of his success here. It is also the justification for the sometimes-meandering nature of his script. Detours, asides and jokes that appear to be incidental to the action of the play, and therefore slow it down, all serve to build character. The end result is that, when those characters' hearts break, so do ours.

The one exception, perhaps, is a scene where Janet tells of her childhood memory of coming upon the scene of the 1974 Parnell St bombing. This is Barry's own memory (except the scene for him was Nassau St) and the scene in itself is strong and disturbing. But it fits neither the dramatic nor the chronological arc of this play.

Perhaps it may prove to be the germ of another one . . . as this play, too, grew from a previous playlet. Of the cast, Karl Shiels has the more difficult task, as his role comes saddled with a contradiction: the character's voice is strong and articulate, but physically he is an emaciated, crippled, one-time junkie. Shiels deals with this through a nicely stylised physical performance.

Mary Murray's performance opposite him should give her a good chance of going one better on her 2006 best supporting actress gong at the theatre awards: she is superb.

Director Jim Culleton's touch throughout is sure, with one caveat: I think the very last moment is overplayed (it would be daft to reveal it here though).

But apart from that, this final scene, which brings the two actors together for the first time, is a masterpiece of restraint and controlled emotion. It didn't quite bring this critic to his feet, but it brought at least a glimmer of tears to this cynic's eyes.

A man in dog's clothing

TWO years on, Michael Keegan Dolan is back at the Dublin Theatre Festival with the third part in his "Midlands trilogy", James Son of James. Not only did the last part, The Bull, sell out and win rave reviews . . . including from this reporter . . . it was also the subject of an extended debate on Liveline. For the benefit of those who may be considering spending hard-earned money on James Son of James this year . . .or on their licence fee . . . we print below an edited transcript of that debate, featuring Joe Duffy, callers Anne, Derek and Jane. . . and me.

Joe: Anne, good afternoon to you. Most people have not seen this play. You're going to have to explain to people why you're annoyed about it.

Anne: There was gratuitous male nudity along with gratuitous crude language.

Joe: Well, tell us about the gratuitous male nudity then.

Anne: You've several men who, apparently for the sake of it, are just prancing around naked. Joe, I've no objection to male nudity, provided it's doing something useful. I really didn't think it was doing something useful in the play. And we had the ludicrous sight of an actor down on the ground with a leash around his neck pretending to be a dog.

Joe: In the nude?

Anne: In his nude. He then proceeds to jump on the piano stool and play piano.

Joe: It's got rave reviews from the critics.

And you thought it was a load of bull.

Anne: I did.

Joe: Colin Murphy, you thought it was brilliant.

Colin: I did, Joe . . . the naked fellow on a lead is a dog. This is a dance company.

How do you play a dog on stage?

Joe: If I ran around the house in me nude, the kids wouldn't think I was a dog, they'd think I was a lunatic.

Colin: Well if you were any good as an actor Joe, maybe they would.

Joe: But I didn't know that to play a dog you had to strip naked.

Colin: There isn't any law that says you do. Dogs don't tend to go around in their underpants. What's wrong with nudity?

Anne: I just feel that it didn't really serve a purpose. A naked dog and a naked man are two different things . . . They could easily have dressed him up as a dog, put him on a lead. His facial expressions were superb, he would have done it very well anyway.

Colin: They could have dressed him up as a dog. That would have been funny.

Joe: Well Colin, if a naked man walks into Grafton St, people don't say, "there's a dog".

Derek: The dog spent most of the time playing the piano in the nude, which seemed to me to have nothing to do with anything.

Jane: What is wrong with being in the nude anyway?