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“What are you doing back around here, Gary?” asks Denise — a young mother and one of Gary’s neighbours on the estate of Shaun Dunne’s The Waste Ground Party — as she tries to fathom why the twenty-two-year old has dropped out of college to return to a life that everyone so vehemently tries to escape from. Dunne’s one-act drama is very much a play about mothers and sons — specifically matriarchs stuck in a stagnant community with ostensibly over-dependent offspring.

The thrust of the play’s action resides in the tension surrounding the illegal dumping of bin bags on the estate and the transformation of the waste ground into a playground, which coincides with a long-held rivalry between Bernie and Tina — the warring mothers of Gary and his best friend, Martin. Dunne seamlessly weaves these seemingly chaotic elements of the drama into a piece of theatre that engages with contemporary Dublin in an unapologetic light.

Niamh Lunny’s set approaches the naturalistic and as you sit waiting for the action to begin, the washing machine in Bernie’s kitchen spins full throttle, lending perfectly to the impressive sense of reality Dunne creates within the world of the play. Gerard Stembridge directs a drama that is both dark and humorous and Ger Ryan particularly shines in the role of Bernie – Gary’s long-suffering, yet devoted mother.

As much as The Waste Ground Party is a play about family, it is also one full of binary oppositions — most notably the taut division between entrapment and freedom, using the question of Gary’s future as a vehicle for harder questions about Dublin and the pressures of community.

The Waste Ground Party runs on the Peacock Stage at the Abbey until November 22. Check out our interview with playwright Shaun Dunne.