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Friel’s dance to destiny is still a coup de théâtre
DACING AT LUGHNASA
Old Vic
BRIAN Friel turned to the theatre because he had lost faith in writing and, seeing the revival of his modern classic Dancing at Lughnasa, he is to be complimented with Anna Mackmin’s spirited production: a star-studded cast, including the singer Andrea Corr, of the world-famous Irish band The Corrs, in her debut part, movie actress Susan Lynch and TV star Niamh Cusack. It is a memory play set in the mystical plane of Ballybegs, County Donegal, in 1936.
Friel’s piece is reminiscent of Tennessee Williams’s minor masterpiece The Glass Menagerie, also set in the hungry 1930s, with its sexual tensions, and sub-Brechtian actor-narrator “gentleman caller” – the latter being the only contact with the outside world.
Friel also tips his Donegal tweed cap to Williams with his reference to a unicorn, echoing the symbolic figure in the tragic heroine’s menagerie.
However, Friel’s gentleman caller is from a different place: a Welshman with enough blarney to see off the “Earl of Blarney” himself.
Evans (played with great panache by Jo Stone-Fewings) has fathered a love-child with the romantic Chris (Andrea Corr), one of five sisters living in a repressed Catholic community in Ireland.
The Mundy sisters manage a smallholding with the eldest, Kate (Michelle Fairley), having a teaching position in the local school.
Their existence is disrupted with the return of their priest brother, Jack (Finbar Lynch), from an African mission. As well as losing a few of his marbles, Father Jack has also lost his Catholic faith – much to the chagrin of sister Kate.
The dancing of the title is to celebrate the pagan god Lugh, a harvest festival held each year in early August, with the anarchic carnival and its sexual connotations encapsulated by the sisters in a coup de théâtre sequence: listening to a clapped out Marconi wireless and engaging in a spontaneous rural goat dance, sister Kate initially reluctant but giving in to primal forces – expressing her frustrations in an extraordinary piece of leg work.
The only problem I had with this production is that it is in the round and the voice of Peter McDonald, who played Michael/boy/narrator, was partly lost where I was sitting (ironically where the stage used to be).
Finbar Lynch, as mad Jack, and Simone Kirby, as the slow-witted Rose stand out in supporting, roles. A fine piece of theatre.
Until May 9 |
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