Lunchtime theater at Bewley’s Cafe on Grafton Street in Dublin featuring some of Ireland’s top acting talent is ideal for visitors who are looking to tap into Ireland’s rich theatrical heritage.
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Bewley’s Café Theatre has been operating since 1999 and is popular among Dubliners and tourists alike.
In fact, the theatrical initiative has an international reputation for both innovation and excellence.
An Irish Times Judges’ Special Award Winner, the repertoire includes everything from classic one-act plays based on the works of Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Sean O’Casey, as well as newer material.
Lunchtime theater at Bewley’s Cafe 2025 summer/early fall lineup includes the following:
Counterparts & A Little Cloud: From James Joyce’s Dubliners
Features two stories from James Joyce’s “Dubliners” that portray vivid “slices of life” in early 20th-century Dublin. Producers describe them as “at once funny and tragic,” with colorful characters in both.
This production, which is part of the city’s Bloomsday Festival, runs through June 16th, but is already sold out.
Stumped
Fans of Irish writer Samuel Beckett won’t want to miss this lunchtime theater performance.
Stumped is being described as a “brilliant absurdist comedy,” exploring the friendship between two great men and the strains that the game of cricket impose on it.
Two actors portray Beckett and Harold Pinter, the creator of one of the longest running TV soaps, “Coronation Street,” and their love of cricket during an afternoon in 1964.
It runs from June 23rd through July 19th.
In Extremis
This exciting new production is based on the true story of a meeting between writer Oscar Wilde and a society palmist named Mrs. Robinson, who agreed to see Wilde in her London flat a week before Wilde’s “trial of the century.”
In Extremis is being described as witty and haunting and imagines what may have happened that night.
It runs from July 21st through Aug. 16th.
Mortal Sin
In the wake of JFK’s assassination, Colm and Peggy, two best friends, stage a protest to get a day off school to honor the fallen U.S. president, John F. Kennedy.
Sure, they got one when the Pope died?
Mortal Sin is a “bold, heartfelt, and sharply witty exploration of what it means to grow up different in an Ireland where the Church controls everything from the classroom to confession.”
A not-to-be-missed production if you are interested in the cultural aspects of Ireland’s history.
The History of Bewley’s in Ireland
The Bewley name has a long association with Dublin.
The Bewley family, with origins in the Quaker movement, came to the city from Cumberland, England, in the 17th century.
In 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son, Charles, imported over 2,000 chests of tea from China in the hopes that the tea would sell in the Irish market.
That was before tea drinking was a national pastime.
Luckily for the Bewleys, the gamble paid off and helped make the company a household name in Ireland with its formation in 1840.
After selling tea for a number of years, the family expanded into the coffee business, opening cafes on South Great George’s Street in 1894 and another one on Westmoreland Street in 1896.
What would become their flagship store on Grafton Street, where the lunchtime theater performances are held, was opened in 1927 by Ernest Bewley.
The building once housed the Seminary for the Instruction of Youth, where the Duke of Wellington (who served twice as Britain’s prime minister) and Robert Emmett, the Irish nationalist, went to school.
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You’ll find Bewley’s cafes across Ireland as well as in the U.S. and the U.K. under different brand names. Customers in the U.S. can purchase the tea on Amazon.