The Colleen Bawn

Project Arts Centre, Dublin Previews tonight & tomorrow 12 8pm Opens Jul 26-Sep 4 €12 01-8819613 projectartscentre.ie

It's another busy year for Dion Boucicault, the 19th-century playwright who made a fortune reinventing the "stage Irishman" and still does reliable box-office several generations later.

Last spring the National Theatre (UK) had a hit with Boucicault's early comedy, London Assurance, while our own Abbey is banking on the political melodrama of Arrah-na-Pogue to do the business as its Christmas show.

In the meantime, Project Arts Centre, Bedrock Productions and Civic Theatre have collaborated to make Boucicault a man for all seasons, staging his 1860 melodrama, The Colleen Bawn, for nine weeks in the Project before touring.

The play is a story of desire, class and commerce, where a debt-ridden Hardress Cregan is encouraged to marry his wealthy cousin, but is already secretly married to the titular, beautiful peasant girl whom his aristocratic life won't accommodate.

Handling the outlandish plot developments that follow, director Jimmy Fay may well choose to draw out the darker politics of the text, in which Irish culture and colonial structures form their own tragedy. But, for all his subtext, Boucicault was always more interested in pleasing a crowd. And these days, as the national tour suggests, the crowd wants to be pleased.

CAN'T SEE THAT? CATCH THIS

Penelope, Druid Lane Theatre, Galway & Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork