The emotional memory play "Dancing at Lughnasa," running through June 9th at Dunwoody's
Stage Door Players, is alternately touching and harrowing. This bittersweet duality is due in large part to deep, layered performances by a skilled cast and the insightful direction of three-time
Suzi Bass Award winning actress Tess Malis Kincaid. Even though the play's setting is thousands of miles and the better part of a century removed from present day Atlanta, each character, and their individual and collective struggles, seems remarkably contemporary. While the play, by Tony-winner
Brian Friel, is not the traditional comic summer fare, its heartbreaking themes, mixed with occasional lighthearted moments, are genuinely emotional.
"Dancing at Lughnasa," which won three Tony Awards in 1992, including Best Play, focuses on the small Mundy family cottage near fictional Ballybeg, Ireland in the midst of the Great Depression. The five sisters, their older brother, recently returned from 25 years as a Catholic missionary in Africa, and seven-year old nephew Michael live in the cramped quarters and struggle to make ends meet. An adult Michael, played by Travis Young, provides context and narration throughout the action as he looks back with love and pain on the summer that changed his family forever.
Each of the five sisters are uniquely and interestingly drawn, each dealing with their difficult life in her own way.
Ann Wilson plays the de facto matriarch, Kate. The eldest sister and the family's bread-winner, she leads her sisters with the tough-love befitting her role as a parish school teacher. Wilson said in a
BWW Interview, "(The Mundys) will remind you of your own particular family," and ironically it was her Kate that immediately reminded me of my great-grandmother; white hair in a tight bun, high-collar
Ed White shirt, and a stoic strength.
Gina Rickicki's Maggie, the family's sarcastic homemaker sister, is a highlight of the show, though not at the center of much of the drama. Rachel Frawley, as Michael's single-mother, Chris, is devastating as she wrestles with her love for her son's roving, but charming, father Gerry (
Jeremy Harrison). Sisters Agnes (Erin Considine) and Rose (Mary Saville), who hand-knit gloves together, each are forced to their breaking points, in part, by the unrequited love of the men they desire.
Each of the sisters fawn over their brother, Father Jack (George Deavours), who has returned from Africa with a life-threatening case of malaria. However, the more he speaks of his time abroad, the more his sisters begin to think that there might have been another reason that he was sent home.
The Mundys' lives are as depressing as the setting would imply, but they find a temporary release when their wireless radio unpredictably works. The sisters stomp and kick out their frustrations as they dance around the cottage and the garden outside. While it is all done with an overarching tinge of sadness, these irregular releases serve as the few happy moments that the family experiences together.
Their cottage, missing most of its exterior walls, is a gorgeous reflection of Michael's fond, but tumultuous childhood memories, designed by Chuck Welcome. Additionally, the lighting design by
John David Williams subtly sets the nostalgic scene.
Whether viewed as a sentimental tale of a time long-passed, or as an alagory for today's difficult financial and evolving social situations, "Dancing at Lughnasa" is an intense evening of theatre that will open your heart to a complex, but familiar family.
"Dancing at Lughnasa" runs through June 9th, to get your tickets call
770-396-1726 or visit the Stage Door Players
website.
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