Dancing at Lughnasa (Theatre By the Lake, Keswick)

Brian Friel’s 1990 play is often regarded as his masterpiece. The action is set in 1936 at the end of summer, around the time of the pagan festival of Lughnasa, and centres around one household in rural Donegal. Five sisters live there, along with their brother Jack, a missionary priest recently returned after many years in Uganda.

But though the rhythms and details of their lives are minutely observed, this is no straightforward slice of life. What we see on stage is in fact remembered for the audience by the seventh member of the family, Michael, many years later.

Michael was six in 1936, and not only narrates in the present to link the scenes but also participates in this staging of his own memories, as a much older man, by repeating his earlier words from the side of the stage when required. The cast is completed by the visits from Michael’s father, of whom these are his first recollections.

It’s a play whose melancholy narrative undertow (during which the cast freeze on stage) is balanced by the beauty and energy dancing can bring. The ‘dancing’ of the title covers (amongst other things) an African dance from Jack, Michael’s father stepping out with several of the sisters, and all five of them breaking into a sudden wild dance as the radio comes on unexpectedly at a particularly tense moment.

Director Mary Papadima’s production is sensitive to the poetry of moments like these, though one moment when African colours and designs were projected over the set feels a little too emphatic.

There are some excellent central performances. Fiona Putnam’s Agnes is a subtle study in repressed emotions. Polly Lister’s cheerfully direct Maggie holds the stage, and Isabella Marshall as Michael’s mother Chris enchants as she falls in love all over again with the man who ran out on her.

Ben Ingles as love rat Gerry Evans is a graceful and compulsively watchable mover, though his Welsh accent is sometimes more mobile than you might wish.Roger Delves-Broughton’s Michael is interestingly and bracingly unsentimental.

Meanwhile, Aislinn Mangan as Kate and Jack Power as Father Jack are quietly effective. Laura Darrall’s childish Rose doesn’t quite fit in this world of adults (even the six year old Michael appears more grown-up); her consequent victimhood feels slightly out of step with the rest of the production.

Overall though, this is a thoughtful production of a truly great play.

Dancing At Lughnasa is at The Theatre By The Lake until 19 April.

– Stephen Longstaffe