‘Rebellion’: Squashing Ireland’s Easter uprising one more time

To mark the 100th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Uprising, SundanceTV gives us “Rebellion,” a three-part miniseries, which sounds like a terrific idea. Period drama has been a hallmark of television’s own revolution and though historically significant, the Uprising was miniseries-sized: short-lived — a week — and confined to Dublin’s city center.

Alas, the center could not hold, there or here. In “Easter, 1916,” William Butler Yeats may have been able to see the terrible beauty born of the bloody events but “Rebellion” is a soapy mess that ignores the actual drama of the times in favor of following three women as they deal with sexism, forbidden love, unwanted pregnancy and the need for women doctors.

All of which are legitimate and potentially fascinating topics, but so is the Easter Uprising, which is why I thought we were here.

Ireland’s long struggle under British rule had taken it through famine, diaspora, political unrest and religious strife until finally, in 1914, the British Parliament passed the Third Home Rule Act, which would have established a separate Irish government.

Unfortunately for those who supported the Republic, World War I began shortly thereafter and the Home Rule Act was suspended. While many Irish believed it would be restored at the end of the war, others were not so sure; Irish men were being encouraged to fight for Great Britain, now considered by many to be a foreign government. Fearing that conscription would be next (it was), a group of Republican insurgents decided to act.

During Easter week, 1,600 men and women took over the Dublin Post Office and other central buildings, hoping it would spark a national revolt.

I only feel the need to address this because “Rebellion” does not. Written by Colin Teevan, the series is an astonishment of context avoidance.

Never mind the various characters and history of the Republican movement, or the internal debate over the use of violence; “Rebellion” doesn’t even bother to examine the religious tensions that have defined Irish politics for centuries.

Which is a bit like making a series about the American Revolution without mentioning taxation without representation or the Boston Massacre.

Instead the series opens in 1914 with an absurdly cursory preface — Europe “stands on the brink of war” while Ireland “stands divided” between those who support home rule and those who do not — before cutting to an adorable performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Three Little Maids From School.”

Why? Because these are the women who form what little narrative structure “Rebellion” provides.

Elizabeth Butler (Charlie Murphy) is a wealthy med student who, though engaged to a man of whom Daddy approves, is secretly a gun-running socialist. Teacher turned rebel Frances O’Flaherty (Ruth Bradley) is perpetually furious when men don’t take her seriously as a soldier and friends don’t share her (nearly obsessive) desire to die for Ireland. And finally, there’s May Lacy (Sarah Greene), who works in Dublin Castle as secretary to a British bureaucrat with whom she is having an affair.

The famous names — Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Eamon De Valera — come and go but it’s difficult to keep track of them or their plans, what with crisscrossing stories that involve the three women and a panoply of others including an Irish soldier torn between king and country, Elizabeth’s drunken brother and the mean wife of May’s boss/lover.

Amid all the unnecessary histrionics, “Rebellion” offers more than a few moments of beauty and power, but they fly at you suddenly, like bullets splintering door jambs or ricocheting off the Dublin statuary. And then they’re gone, leaving you with a scene that could have been lifted from “The Knick,” or “Downton Abbey” if either of them dealt with the heartbreak of Irish history, which they don’t.

Unfortunately, neither does “Rebellion,” and it’s a shame. Surely there’s a better way to mark a brave if doomed rebellion than by squashing it one more time.

mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

Follow me @MaryMacTV