Making a Show of Myself – 06 February 2026

So much of Broadway today is about spectacle, and with shortening attention spans due to availability of technology, it was bold of Irish Repertory Theatre to program a show that was self-contained as a woman (Mary Kate O Flanagan) telling six stories from different parts of her life. Mary Kate O Flanagan spoke in an even voice with a wee bit of joking, and alternated between telling stories and explaining the process of story telling. There was no stage magic, no interaction with offstage characters, very limited blocking, and no linear plot line. In the hands of most playwright/performer multihyphenates, this would have been boring. But Mary Kate O Flanagan had me not only transfixed, but moved to tears. I cried for most of the show, in a cathartic wave of healing that I didn’t know I needed.

O Flanagan’s stories were profound and spoke to the existence of good people in a dark world. As a writer and storyteller myself, I was especially moved by O Flanagan’s explanation of how a story is shaped and the importance of framing. The first story she told, for example, could have been about a bad online dating experience. Instead, because of where O Flanagan chose to end the story, it was about having a best friend. Two stories later, O Flanagan told the story of Carlos, a 16 year old Sudanese refugee who she helped gain safe passage to Ireland. She could easily have painted herself as a hero, but instead approached the story with a humility that let the audience feel as if they themselves could walk a similar path, as if the actions were ordinary—as if doing the right thing can prevail with persistence. One of O Flanagan’s most moving stories was about her and her sisters carrying their father’s coffin in an act that is usually reserved for men. Her strength and pride came through clearly, even though she told this story in the same tone as every other.

The way that O Flanagan told her stories was the right combination of humor, Irish culture, storytelling aptitude, and personal investment. But the bits between the stories that unmasked her storytelling secrets were equally moving. Her insistence that stories come from times of struggle and moments of internal imbalance proved true, and knowing that she believed that lent context to how she told her stories. The story about the 16 year old Sudanese refugee and the story about the strength of her sisters caused her conflict. Doing the right thing was not easy in those moments, even though her quiet, even voice didn’t betray where the struggles and the conflicts were. This left the audience with the slightest hint of an unsolved mystery in her otherwise extremely well formulated stories. These tales were all beautiful and told with a linguistic precision that made them soar. Sometimes it was hard to believe that all six could be part of the same person’s life, much less the woman standing before us telling them. It was a truly magical, ephemeral experience.

Making a Show of Myself cut deep into the soul of a person, in this case, a storyteller. The beauty in her stories was drawn partially from the stories themselves and partially from the intentional way that Mary Kate O Flanagan told them. The performance was deeply engaging, philosophically stimulating, and absolutely wondrous.

I attended this performance on a press pass from Print Shop PR.