The set of Royal & Derngate Northampton’s DANCING AT LUGHNASA transports the audience to another world. Birds chirp offstage, and a realistic approximation of evening sunlight bathes the set which is at once indoors and outdoors. The stage is busy with props: the statue of the Virgin Mary, the rosary beads, the votive candles. Well, you can’t have an Irish play without a bit of religion.
Brian Friel’s DANCING AT LUGHNASA, is set in 1930s Donegal, in the home of the five Mundy sisters, and is narrated by Michael, son of the youngest sister, Christina. Colm Gormley as Michael is effortless, borrowing from the ancient Celtic storytelling tradition as if spinning a yarn by the fire in the pub. Because Michael is a grown man recounting childhood memories, the play has a unique, almost omniscient narrative style.
Each of the Mundy sisters performs faultlessly, with impeccable accents. Kate (Michele Moran) is stern and religious, Maggie (Caroline Lennon) diffuses tension with her singing and quick wit, Agnes (Gráinne Keenan) is the saddest sister, hiding her misery in housework, Rose (Sarah Corbett) is the ‘simple’ one, warming the audience with her affection and laughter – “I love you more than chocolate biscuits!” she proclaims. Central to the story is Zoë Rainey’s Christina, who had Michael “out of wedlock”, probably ruining her sisters’ chances of marriage, a theme which lurks below the play’s surface.
Two men turn up during the course of the play. Michael’s father, Gerry (Milo Twomey) is a charming rogue (with a slightly questionable Welsh accent) and the audience quickly understands why Christina allows herself to love and believe this man who drifts in and out of her life. There is also a subtle chemistry between Gerry and Agnes, which adds an interesting and unexplained complexity. The other man is Jack (Christopher Saul), the Mundys’ older brother; a missionary priest dismissed from his post in Uganda for his assimilation of pagan culture. Religion and superstition play a key role, mainly centred on the pagan Lughnasa festival occurring in the local town.
Music and dancing pervade the play. The girls turn on ‘Marconi’, the wireless radio, and the Irish jigs and 30s dancehall tunes influence the mood and movements of the actors. Although Kate refuses to let her sisters go to the dance at Lughnasa, the characters dance throughout the play – the sisters perform a frenzied Irish reel, Jack enacts African ceremonies, Gerry and Christina ballroom dance together.
Dancing at Lughnasa isn’t touring after Oxford, so you should definitely set aside an evening this week to see it. It’s quite long, but I found that the time rushed by when I was caught up in the lives of the Mundy family. (And if you’re curious , like I was, it’s pronounced “LOON-asa”.) @bookingaround
