Set in rural Ireland, By The Bog of Cats mixes the trademark dark humor of the Irish with an uncompromising tale of abandonment and shocking self-sacrifice. Hester Swane (Virginia Burke) is an Irish “tinker,” a woman born of gypsies, and tied to the bleak landscape of the bog where she has lived her whole life. Her younger lover, Carthage Kilbride (John Catron), with whom she has a daughter, is on the verge of a marriage to another woman that will bring him land, wealth and respect. Refusing to acknowledge that Carthage could ever leave her, Hester grips more tightly and tragically to the life she believes is rightfully hers.
