THIS week the Irish Arts Center in New York presents Rock Doves, the new play by Belfast-based Marie Jones, author of the Broadway smash hit Stones in His Pockets. Set in her home city, a place thriving now that the Troubles are over, Rock Doves centers around four wild and colorful characters as they try to navigate the "new" Northern Ireland.

There are few contemporary playwrights who have such a shrewd grasp of the countless privations (and all the private dreams) of the Irish working class as Jones. To attend one of her plays, in any theater or town hall in Ireland, is to witness the local community laughing with delight and recognition at the themes and situations she addresses.

And she doesn't just go after easy chuckles. In her play A Night in November, she follows a Protestant man from Belfast's fateful decision to support the Republic of Ireland's soccer team. There's fun to be had doing that, but she never shies away from the very real consequences of making truly unpopular decisions either.

Back in 2001 Jones' Broadway hit, Stones In His Pockets, showed how American sentimentality about Ireland can result in truly terrible films, betraying both the community and the facts. When a small Irish town is taken over by preening Hollywood types farce quickly ensues.

Something similar happens in Rock Doves, when ordinary working class Belfast people find that although the troubles have ended, their own lives are at a standstill. When your identity and all you have ever known is determined by an intractable conflict, what happens when all of that comes to an end? Who do you turn to? How do you survive?

Jones' play takes it title from one of the hardiest of all birds, the rock dove that scrapes out its difficult existence without help or hope of comfort.

"The reason it's called Rock Doves is because rock doves are pigeons that live in the harshest conditions possible and yet they survive," Jones said during an interview with the Irish Voice.

"I grew up in very urban Belfast and the only birds we saw were pigeons. I was convinced that Belfast men walked like pigeons, that waddle they had. People fed those pigeons, they lived on our roof, and the man next door raced them. I was always fascinated with how little they seemed to need to exist.

"And so the play is also about people who are survivors like those birds, people who have absolutely no control over their lives, people who are forced to survive on their wits. They survive by their imagination, their creativity and their wits. It's a story of survival."

In Rock Doves Jones' characters don't romanticize their plight either. They would very obviously prefer not to be so trapped by their own communities, but they find they can't escape them. In such cases they have to fall back on their own humor or fortitude to get by.

"To the outside world, many communities in Northern Ireland look like complete madness. But to those who live in them the parameters of what is normal shift," Jones says.

"People who live in war zones still get up in the morning and go to work and they feed their kids and help them with homework. They have to find a way to live in a situation that's out of control."

Jones has watched the gradual, at times glacial, progress of the peace process for over a decade and agrees that there was no alternative to it, the people were sick of the war. It was all just a matter of waiting, she feels. But she dismisses the idea that the peace process has transformed the reality of all lives in Northern Ireland.

"The peace process has transformed life for some people, but for others not. You just don't move into peace. A lot of these communities are still living by the same rules they followed 20 years ago," she feels.

"You cannot suddenly expect these militias that have power over their community to suddenly relinquish it. These are generals who don't want to go back to being milkmen, say. They were fighting in a battle zone, all of the factions, and if you live in that community then that's still your reality because you don't have the means to get out of it."

In Rock Doves Jones writes a poignant tale of one young man who cannot escape the long shadow of history or the dangerous demands of his own community. Jones has clear sympathy for him, but she's also aware of the wrongheaded assumptions that lead him toward his fate.

"Conflict is all this character has known. He wants to be a part of the conflict because that's how he finds his identity, make his place, he wants to be identified as a hero. For him and all the lads like him they are still fighting a war. That's how they see it," she says.

Jones' work commands instant respect from the Irish and American theater world, and so it's no surprise to hear she has assemble an all star cast and production team to bring her latest play to New York. The cast of Rock Doves, for example, features actor Marty Maguire (last seen here giving an electrifying performance as Bull McCabe in John B. Keane's The Field at Irish Repertory Theatre) and the show is directed by actor and Tony nominated director Ian McElhinney.

There's no question they could open the new play on Broadway, but this time they have elected to open at the Irish Arts Center, a space that Jones loves.

"I have had plays performed at the Irish Center before and I just feel a real connection with the place. What you get is total support from the arts staff there. Why would you not want to be in a place like that, that totally support you and give you every encouragement?"

(Rock Doves is now in previews. Tickets are $45. The Irish Arts Center, 553 West 51st Street, is making a special offer of $30 tickets to Irish Voice readers for the month of September. For tickets call SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or www.smarttix.com and use the ticket code VC30PR.)