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With Shay Linehan’s My Name is Alice Devine being described as a play about “one woman’s struggle to cope with everything post-boom Ireland can throw at her” wherein “anything that can go wrong, does go wrong”, one would be forgiven for expecting a familiar, if not mawkish lament of the Celtic Tiger. However, this one-woman play, starring Hilda Fay as the eponymous protagonist is anything but nostalgically saccharine. My Name is Alice Devine, which is currently running at Bewley’s Café Theatre is an exhaustive exercise in emotion, as Fay’s portrayal of the grief-stricken Alice is, at times, incredibly uncomfortable and morose to watch, and at others, belly-achingly funny and candid.

Billed as Ireland’s Every-woman, Devine’s story is a recognisable tale of the woman who had it all and then lost it in the recession. However, this recount is – at least on the surface – almost cataclysmic in its tragedy. Devine is battling apathetic bank managers, mourning the shocking death of her husband, fighting depression and dealing with the emigration of her beloved grown-up sons. Fay is a tour-de-force in the titular role and thanks to the intimacy of Bewley’s Café Theatre – which places you right in the heart of both Alice’s kitchen and life – her every tear and laughter line is impeccably clear. It can be as chilling as it is inviting.

Fay expertly balances the darkness and light of Linehan’s writing and you’ll find yourself wiping tears of laughter away as she mimics the nasally tones of “Mary, the bangharda”, who brings Alice coffee and donuts as she stages a one-woman protest outside of her local bank. However, when she asks her dead husband “how could you do it?”, Fay’s exposition of Alice’s purportedly-insurmountable loneliness is heart- breaking, if not a little perturbing to witness.

Alice Devine’s circumstances are undeniably lamentable, but she manages to find hope in the depths of desolation. It may not be prophetic, but it certainly isn’t quaint when Alice recognises that when you’re suffering from heartbreak (and Alice’s is extortionate), you have to find a way to distract yourself and start to move on rather than dwell. Hilda Fay – who returns to the stage in the coming months with the revival of 2008’s Little Gem – delivers a captivating and beguiling performance as Devine and to some degree or another, you find empathy towards her as you will Alice on to overcome her immense loss.

My Name is Alice Devine is running at Bewley’s Café Theatre until October 11.