Da is Hugh Leonard's best play. For the first time, Ireland's most prolific and commercially successful workhorse of the theatre has proved that he can infuse some heart as well as technical virtuosity into his work. It is unashamedly autobiographical; in a program note Leonard states that his father was a "man in whose life there was not one ounce of conventional—i.e. theatrical—drama." (pp. 397-98)

The father-son relationship, the "topping" of the father by the son, is an elemental theme in dramatic literature…. Leonard in Da uses … a fluid, cinematic form ranging freely in time and place; two actors playing the part of the son …; an elderly father whose words of affection are log-jammed in his mind; a son whose taunts do not provoke the father into abandoning his apparent disinterest and his years of role playing. The bloodlines of Leonard's play lead directly to...