Pea Dinneen in "Pea Dinneen: Raising Her Voice"Carol Rosegg

Pea Dinneen’s "Raising Her Voice" is about a performer becoming who she has always known herself to be. From the moment her voice changed, she struggled to be seen and heard as she saw herself — someone different from the person she was told she was.

“I am an Irish trans woman. This is what my voice sounds like. And I’m here to sing you some dumb songs.”

Written by the performer and directed by John King, the show’s delightful cabaret style softens the harshness of her transformation, especially with pianist and musical director Paul James Prior’s excellent accompaniment.

Serving notice in cheeky fashion, even the slip of paper in the program that usually informs the audience about understudies gets in on the act: “In tonight’s performance, the role of IRELAND will be played by YOU, the audience.”

It’s a wonderful way to win over a new hometown crowd.

The performance is structured as a cabaret act that amplifies emotion, using songs popular in Dublin during the 1990s as the soundtrack to Dinneen’s story and personal transformation. She belts them out as if they saved her life — which they probably did.

Dinneen is delightfully unabashed in presenting herself and telling the story of her transition. Along the way, the show is joyful, hopeful, grim, and heartbreaking, with occasional flights of fancy.

A veteran cabaret performer, she skillfully selects songs that express emotions and ideas that words alone cannot. Yet she is more than a pop performer. Her script includes a dissection of the conditional tense in Irish and the effect it can have on self-image.

“My childhood ended with the modh coinníollach. In the Irish language, that’s the conditional tense.

"The would, the could, the might — the tense of possibility, of potential; the unsaid, the undone, the untouched, the unkissed...?”

The conditional tense in a cabaret show? Dinneen proves she is not just a pretty face.

Pea Dinneen in "Pea Dinneen: Raising Her Voice." (Carol Rosegg)

The evening’s themes are established early with her choice of No Doubt’s catchy meditation on gender expectations, "Just a Girl:"

“Oh, I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don't let me have any rights
Oh, I've had it up to here.”

The show is divided into 12 episodes, each exploring a different aspect of Dinneen’s transition. "Voice of a Nation" begins with "Just a Girl;" "Who Were You?" features the girl-power pop masterpiece "C’est La Vie" by B*Witched; and "Tá Mé (I am)" pairs a cover of Radiohead’s "Creep" with Meredith Brooks’ "Bitch."

For all the joy these pop songs provide, Dinneen also recounts the hardships and frustrations of her decades-long transition. Yet throughout the 90-minute performance, her story is told with an effusive confidence that overcomes political, medical, and societal roadblocks.

Ireland in the 1990s was not the enlightened society it has since become. Dinneen discusses political milestones such as the 2018 referendum that repealed the constitutional ban on abortion, the personal circumstances that delayed her transition, and her unwavering acceptance of who she knew herself to be.

Dublin — especially gay Dublin — is a constant companion on her journey, with familiar landmarks and locations woven throughout the narrative. One of the show’s highlights is a rousing song about the “gay Spar” near Dublin’s oldest gay bar, The George, sung in full throat and culminating in a shower of pink confetti.

“Her shelves are as long as the canal is grand
And they’re stocked to the hilt with HRT on demand
Beside the fresh bread there’s a selection of binders
And they’ll take the order for your weekly shop on Grindr.”

(Spar is a chain of Irish convenience stores.)

As proof of how far trans rights have come in Ireland, Dinneen arrived in New York carrying the one letter on her passport that she fought decades to obtain: “F.” Her story recounts everything she endured to earn that life-affirming letter. She has arrived.

"Pea Dinneen: Raising Her Voice" is playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre’s W. Scott McLucas Studio through June 28. Tickets and performance information are available from the theatre’s website.