A Preview of the Bittersweet Joy in APT’s “Dancing at Lughnasa”

When I cast my mind back to the fall of 1990, different kinds of memories offer themselves to me. A college junior, I spent a semester in London seeing as many plays as I possibly could, including a new production at the National Theatre called Dancing at Lughnasa. My third encounter with Irish playwright Brian Friel (after Translations and Faith Healer), the play left me in awe of the power of language and story to transform an audience.

After returning to the States the following spring, I smiled knowingly each time Lughnasa was mentioned, in theater circles and the press – transferring to Broadway, earning Olivier, Tony, and Drama Desk Awards, and then gradually gracing the seasons of every major regional theater, to the delight of audiences and under-utilized actresses across the country. In 1995 I wrote a chapter of my master’s thesis on the play, transporting me back to that original viewing every time I read through my dog-eared copy of the script. So seeing the gorgeous memory play at American Players Theatre during its first preview, in the hands of director/APT Artistic Director Brenda DeVita and a cast of some of my favorite actors on the planet, affected me deeply.

The first preview is the end of the rehearsal process; getting the show on its feet with all the technical elements in place, with a live audience for the first time. It’s an opportunity to discover when viewers laugh, or gasp, or applaud spontaneously. It’s sometimes a wonky run-through when actors have to juggle all their costume pieces and props without the opportunity to stop and start. And on the warm, clear evening of August 2, it was also an invocation for the Celtic god Lugh to inhabit the stage – up the hill, among the trees – for the entire performance. Associated with the sun, fighting, oaths, justice, and the harvest, the spirit could not be more appropriate to the story about the end of a period of happy naivete; the fracturing of an extended family; the seismic shift in community and technology in 1936; and the encroachment of the pagan on the divine, the profane on the pure.

The story is told through the eyes of middle-aged Michael. He narrates the family drama of five sisters living in a tiny cottage in Ballybeg, Ireland, and the male interlopers who threaten the balance of the interdependent women – an aged and ailing uncle who spent his life as a Catholic missionary in Uganda; a charming but duplicitous Welsh suitor; and Michael himself as a small boy, being raised by the entire Mundy clan. Like a Chekov play with an Irish brogue, the end of the story finds each character worse off than they started, with dreams dashed and fortunes fading.

Though the play’s destination is bleak, the journey is exquisite – full of joy and hope and possibility. As Dancing at Lughnasa unfolds up the hill, as the sun goes down, here are exceptional some moments to look for:

*The juxtaposition between stillness and industry. Trapped in the house together, unable to move forward in their lives, the women are none-the-less always in motion; taking care of daily chores, dancing around the house with the laundry, or working – spinning wool with a drop spindle and knitting gloves with quick precision.

*The many references to dance. These include the Mundy sisters’ longing to go to the harvest festival dance in town; the rituals that Uncle Jack describes from harvest festivals in Africa; the awkward romantic dances that Chris, Agnes, Rose and Kate do with partners who are wrong for them; the literal dancing lessons that Gerry offers – another sales scheme gone bad; the pagan dancing that severely injures a boy from the village; the dance that Maggie does with seven year-old Michael as she tells him riddles; and the spontaneous dancing inspired by the radio that seems possessed by demons. Add to this the smooth and subtly intricate partner dances and joyful eruptions in movement, seamlessly choreographed by Brian Cowing.

*The relationships that radiate love and warmth. Among five unmarried sisters, each of them has at least one partner onstage who completes them. Watching those gorgeous bonds develop and evolve over the course of the play is the reason that Michael revisits these memories so often.

*The cracks that begin to show. Each of the Mundy sisters has a breaking point; a moment of jealousy, resentment, anger, or despair that seeps into the story in the smallest vocal inflection or furtive glance. From those tiny fissures, impossibly wide chasms grow. And since we are told beforehand how the story ends, seeing the first signs of disintegration is as fascinating as it is heartbreaking.

*The artistry of the production elements. Costume designer Rachel Anne Healy, scenic designer Courtney O’Neill, and lighting designer Dawn Chiang all walk a delicate line between presenting the family in a real bygone era versus a golden hued memory. Keeping the audience on a knife’s edge, our focus moves in and out during the story, exposing rough edges one moment and allowing things to blur the next. Significantly, the production never dips into stereotype or succumbs to nostalgia. Instead it indulges in magical moments, which we all need.

*The language. APT often boasts that its audiences lean in to really listen to the plays, which are frequently filled with archaic, stylized language and complex rhyme schemes. That skill will serve viewers well here. The language of Friel’s Ireland is less complicated than a Shakespearean sonnet, but it is no less poetic. He is a master of lines in translation and heightened prose. The words his characters struggle to find are as important as the phrases that come easily. Let it wash over you.

*The strength of the ensemble. At a time when most American theaters have abandoned the repertory company model, it is such a pleasure to see actors return to APT year after year, working with colleagues they know and trust intimately, building on their past roles to sharpen their craft even more each season. The result of this combined experience is on full display in Dancing at Lughnasa, each role perfectly cast, each character impeccably inhabited.

Just as Maggie peppers young Michael with riddles throughout the play, I leave my readers with a question: If this was a reaction to a preview performance, can you imagine how good the run will be?

Dancing at Lughnasa runs through September 27th. For tickets, visit Americanplayers.org or call the box office at 608-588-2361.

Post Script

A Preview of the Bittersweet Joy in APT’s “Dancing at Lughnasa”