DANCING AT LUGHNASA. To 7 September. Then Greenwich 16-21 September.
Newbury/Greenwich
DANCING AT LUGHNASA
by Brian Friel
Watermill Theatre To 7 September 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm, except 7 Sept: 1.30pm & 6.30pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
then Greenwich Theatre 16-21 September 2002
TICKETS 01635 46044 (Newbury)
020 8858 7755 (Greenwich)
Review Timothy Ramsden 5 August
Glowing revival of Friel's tragic story of five sisters in 1930s Ireland.In 1936 the fires of old harvest god Lugh still burn near the farmhouse outside the playwright's regular fictional Donegal town of Ballybeg during the Lughnasa festival. And uncle Jack, back from missionary work in Uganda, clearly went native over his charges' polygamous religion. But, as Jonathan Munby's fine production shows, it's the new world - represented in Marconi, the family's fitfully operative wireless - that destroys these five sisters huddled in their homestead.
When the iron-rule of Kate's Catholic propriety is temporarily broken, it's the sudden sound of broadcast Irish music that provokes the sisters to festive dancing. More gravely, the industrial revolution's finally catching up with Ballybeg. Machinery deprives Agnes and Rose of their hand knitting-work.
Michael, love-child of joyous Chris and Welsh Gerry (Hywel Morgan captures his character's easygoing unreliability in English tones), recreates his childhood home. Daniel Coonan, in smart mid-century jacket and tie, is exemplary, though there's something slightly artificial in the staging, Coonan answering questions put to his imaginary child-self elsewhere on stage.
Peter Dineen's cheery re-patriate worries only when his mind cannot search out the appropriate English word; the production could make more of the ultimate revelation to shock Kate's propriety, hinting at Jack's relation with his Ugandan house-boy.
But the play's soul lies with the sisters; the Watermill team plays with strength. To watch Mary Conlan's dry authoritarian stick reveal her anxieties, or the conflict that leads her to near turning off the dance music, then, as if caught by a resistless force, join the dance instead, is to see a personality revealed. As with Patricia Gannon's Rose, trembling under Mary's inquisition, or having her keen, innocent fun crushed to sad smithereens by sisterly anger.
Michael tells how unemployed Rose and Agnes drift to early deaths in London: Hearing this of Dido Miles' composed Agnes reinforces the human impact of the future. Fine work too from Caroline Lennon's Maggie and Aoife McMahon as Michael's emotionally giving mother.
If not quite perfect – Munby might use pacing to give more sense of structure – overall here's as strong a revival as you'll hope to find.
Michael: Daniel Coonan
Kate: Mary Conlon
Maggie: Caroline Lennon
Agnes: Dido Miles
Rose: Patricia Gannon
Chris: Aoife McMahon
Gerry: Hywel Morgan
Jack: Peter Dineen
Director: Jonathan Munby
Designer: Mike Britton
Lighting: Oliver Fenwick
Music: Dominic Haslam
Choreographer: Katherine Taylor
2002-08-07 14:36:49