Dancing at Lughnasa
★★★☆☆ Affecting
Church Hill Theatre: Wed 20 – Sat 23 Nov 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
Even as other companies gear up for Christmas, Leitheatre look back to September with Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa at the Church Hill.
This entirely unseasonal downbeat piece is discharged with great care and some impressive acting.
Jennie Davidson as Maggie, Laura Thomson as Agnes, Freya O’Horo as Chris, Sammi Watson as Rose, Lynne Morris as Kate, Richard Spiers as Jack. Pic: Marion Donohoejpeg
Friel’s 1990 play is set in a small Donegal town in 1936, told through the memories of Michael, who was seven at the time and living with his mother Chris and her sisters Kate, Maggie, Agnes and Rose. The adult Michael recounts the events of that autumn, as his uncle Jack returns from his time as a priest in Uganda and Michael’s feckless father Gerry makes some of his occasional visits.
What could become a meandering, nostalgic piece of autobiography is actually a carefully plotted play, full of creeping dread. It has echoes of Arthur Miller and shows why Friel was described as an Irish version of Chekhov.
largely very compelling
The slow pace of the narrative can cause real problems, however, and it is to the credit of the cast and directors Mike Paton and Susan Duffy that this is largely very compelling.
The five unmarried Mundy sisters come across very convincingly both individually and as an ensemble. Lynne Morris’s overly pious teacher Kate is portrayed authoritatively, with the character’s religious certainty and more personal doubts very well expressed. Maggie, the outwardly fun-loving joker who keeps house for the family, is similarly given considerable life by Jennie Davidson.
Jennie Davidson as Maggie, Laura Thomson as Agnes, Freya O’Horo as Chris, Sammi Watson as Rose, Lynne Morris as Kate. Pic: Marion Donohoe
Laura Thomson and Sammi Watson also provide sympathetic portrayals of Agnes, the quieter sister, and Rose, whose unspecified developmental disability makes her the object of worry for the others and vulnerable to the attentions of the married Danny Bradley.
Michael’s mother Chris, half aware that Gerry’s promises are as empty as always, yet half believing in them, is heartbreakingly portrayed by Freya O’Horo.
The sisters’ accents – both natural and assumed – do seem to suggest that the family come from different parts of Ireland. They are, however, at least consistent and delivered in such a way that never interferes with the pace of the production. Which is not always the case, and indeed is less successful with some of the male members of the cast.
done with grace
That the young Michael is never actually seen on stage even when other members of the cast interact with him can create problems, but is done with grace here. The use of the adult Michael as a narrator, commenting on the characters and outlining their later fates, is not quite as successful.
Jennie Davidson as Maggie, Lynne Morris as Kate. Pic: Marion Donohoe
Dougie Arbuckle’s performance is considered and sympathetic, but is not helped by how the narration is presented. These moments start to come across as detached from the rest of the action and portentous, with static tableaux only pointing up how successfully the rest of the play maintains its momentum.
Martin Dick’s Gerry, meanwhile, has spark and liveliness but seems to belong in another play altogether. Father Jack, whose return from Africa precipitates the events that threaten to tear the family apart, is given a quiet persuasiveness by Richard Spiers.
Stephen Hajducki and Derek Blackwood’s set is clever and well utilised, with Stephen Hajducki’s sound and Mark Hajducki’s lighting adding considerably to the production. The choreography of Sophie Williams provides the dancing of the title to great effect.
poignancy
The poignancy this play has often achieved in the past does not always come across here. Partly this is because the play itself is beginning to show its age, but it is also because this production, good as it is in many ways, often is oddly distancing. Even the interactions of the sisters, usually so involving, occasionally suffers from this.
Sometimes the stage just seems too busy, with characters who aren’t speaking given ‘something to do’. This attempt to find realism often has the opposite effect, of drawing attention to the artificiality of the situation. And so it does here.
On the whole, however, this is a sympathetic and carefully put together production.
Running time: Two hours and 15 minutes (including one interval)
Church Hill Theatre, 30 Morningside Rd, EH10 4DR
Wednesday 20 – Saturday 23 November 2024
Wed-Fri at 7.30 pm; Sat 2.30 pm
Information and tickets: https://www.leitheatre.com
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Sammi Watson as Rose, Richard Spiers as Jack, Martin Dick as Gerry, Laura Thomson as Agnes, Jennie Davidson as Maggie, Freya O’Horo as Chris, Lynne Morris as Kate, Dougie Arbuckle as Michael. Pic: Marion Donohoe.
ENDS
