Sometimes, our memories, even of hard and testing times, return to us sweetly, like a fleeting song. That’s how playwright Brian Friel remembers one summer from his childhood in rural Ireland in 1936, a moment on the brink of devastating change to his family’s livelihood. Theatre Knoxville Downtown presents Friel’s play that is based on these memories, Dancing at Lughnasa, directed by Barry Wallace. It is a conflicting and bittersweet contemplation on memory, hope, and the painful inevitability of change.
Dancing at Lughnasa is set in the fictional town of Ballybeg in the real County Donegal, Ireland where the Mundy family—sisters Kate, Maggie, Agnes, Rose, and Chris, and Chris’s young son Michael—live in a country cottage two miles from town. As all action of the play takes place either in the Mundy cottage or the yard beyond, the set is split down the middle, with the sparsely furnished cottage taking up the right side and the yard taking up the left, marked by a lone sycamore tree. An old, fickle radio is centered on the back wall of the cottage, turning on and off in odd spurts and spurring the sisters into fits of dancing, while young Michael, not present during the play, builds kites along the fence row near the sycamore.
Dancing at Lughnasa is partially told in retrospect, with the adult Michael, played by Tristan Brown, narrating some of the events of the play and foretelling what is to befall the Mundy family. Eldest sister Kate, played by Wendy Brinley, is the matriarchal figure of the family since their mother passed; a teacher at the local school and the only sister with a stable job, she is strong-willed and keen on upholding traditional Catholic values within the Mundy home. Agnes and Rose, played by Rebecca Gomez and Courtney Woolard, respectively, knit gloves by hand to contribute to the family’s finances and help the spirited Maggie, played by Emma Potter, keep up the cottage. Neither Maggie nor Chris, played by Raine Palmer, earn any income, and all five sisters help to raise seven-year-old Michael and care for their recently-returned older brother, Jack (Randy Thompson), a missionary who spent 25 years in a Ugandan leper colony.
With the approach of the traditional Celtic Lughnasadh harvest festival, a fresh new hope also seems afoot. But as Jack suffers from malaria, and Michael’s transient father, Gerry (Anthony DiFelice), makes empty promises to Chris, change is soon to befall the Mundy family, as well as all of rural Ireland. While moments of joy fleck the dire experiences of the Mundy family, the Industrial Revolution and WWII are both on the horizon, and only the adult Michael knows how the consequences of a changing world and the personal convictions of this impoverished family will come to affect them all.
Dancing at Lughnasa runs through January 26, with showings on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30pm and matinees on Sundays at 3:00pm. Tickets are available at their box office at 800 S. Central Street or online at https://theatreknoxville.com/dancing-at-lughnasa/.
