Standing ovation for last night of 'Lughnasa'
There’s no getting away from the fact that Friel’s ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ is a dark and sad part of Ireland, writes Brian Byrne. That it is set against the distant background of the celebrations around a harvest festival makes it even more so.
But think how much gloomier it would have been if it involved five single brothers instead of five unmarried sisters? Because women together have a natural inclination to let a little gaiety creep into the mostly quiet but sometimes volcanically eruptive days of despair.
And they also tend to try and fix any broken men who wander into their personal planetary system, as they do in this very strong piece of Friel’s work.
‘Lughnasa’ needs strong direction if it is not to become one long dirge of family fragmentation. But it must be done with sensitivity too, and John Martin certainly came through with the necessary in this latest presentation by Kilcullen Drama Group.
The set, conceived and painted by Mischa Fekete and family with help from other backstage stalwarts, and dressed beautifully by Fiona Sloan, was almost a character in itself. It gave the whole production a continuity which flowed seamlessly instead of being punctuated by curtain swishes or strategic dimming of parts of the stage. And when attention shifted from inside to outside the little rural farmhouse, the ‘freeze-frame’ technique used by the characters not immediately involved kept them in the picture instead of being temporarily lost off-stage.
So, a tremendous success on the technical side. But you can’t make a successful play on technicalities. It’s the humanity which defines us all that makes any drama, and the reason a writer wants to tell a story anyhow. ‘Lughnasa’ is, after all, stories of real people, with their hopes, dreams, and frailties. For the Mundy sisters, it is a case of them having learned to hang on. To maintain a collective of lives where those hopes and dreams have already been passed out by unrelenting time and circumstance.
Esther Reddy’s ‘Kate’ is the grim glue which holds the family together in a period when the sporadic performances from the Marconi radio are the only entertainment left in the sisters’ lives. Her income as a teacher is their life’s blood, her strength from the same occupation pulling them through the days and weeks and months and years. Both elements suddenly vulnerable because a brother priest has been returned from his lifetime on an African mission.
Siobhan Murphy plays ‘Maggie’ as the one who works hard to both run the kitchen farm and rescue spirits whenever they threaten to plummet towards the point of no return. A family without a Maggie rarely lasts long in difficult times and situations. But they often keep the gaiety going despite inwardly feeling desperate.
‘Agnes’ as lived by Maryclare McMahon has also come to spin in her own quiet orbit after coming through girlhood without bringing a man with her. She has taken to herself the responsibility of minding Eilis Philips’ ‘Rose’, who everyone knows is not strong enough to survive in the world beyond the home.
Along with Maryclare, Charlene Kilroy is among the talented new people in the Kilcullen Drama Group. Her ‘Chris’ is the unwed mother in the sisterhood who has so far been able to stay young at heart, thanks in part to the needs of raising her son Michael, played by Donagh Noone. And every occasional time the father, 'Gerry', comes to see them, she still goes weak at the knees.
Michael’s role on stage is invisible, as he is the narrator of the story as a grown man, filling in the past gaps, and the futures for them all, from the sidelines. His series of monologues are all the more compelling because the other characters hold their positions while he talks.
Maurice O’Mahony’s ‘Fr Jack’ is initially peripheral, but his homecoming pulls at a loose thread which is to rather quickly unravel the family after the curtain comes down. With Phil Cummins’s ‘Gerry’, the dreamy father of Michael and would-be husband of his mother, except she knows in her heart that it wouldn’t work, they are two ‘broken men’ of different sorts.
The women never do get to the Lughnasa harvest dance that year, nor have they done for many years. But they figuratively dance in a ring around the two men and the boy, holding hands in a dogged attempt to protect them, and themselves, from the inevitable.
It only takes one in such a ring of dancers to fall, or the circle to be broken by one of those inside, and the protection is gone.
All those on stage, and behind it, have come through with yet another marvellous presentation from Kilcullen Drama Group. ‘Lughnasa’ ended last night, with close to 900 people having enjoyed it over the run. None among them would disagree that the standing ovation was truly deserved.
But think how much gloomier it would have been if it involved five single brothers instead of five unmarried sisters? Because women together have a natural inclination to let a little gaiety creep into the mostly quiet but sometimes volcanically eruptive days of despair.
And they also tend to try and fix any broken men who wander into their personal planetary system, as they do in this very strong piece of Friel’s work.
‘Lughnasa’ needs strong direction if it is not to become one long dirge of family fragmentation. But it must be done with sensitivity too, and John Martin certainly came through with the necessary in this latest presentation by Kilcullen Drama Group.
The set, conceived and painted by Mischa Fekete and family with help from other backstage stalwarts, and dressed beautifully by Fiona Sloan, was almost a character in itself. It gave the whole production a continuity which flowed seamlessly instead of being punctuated by curtain swishes or strategic dimming of parts of the stage. And when attention shifted from inside to outside the little rural farmhouse, the ‘freeze-frame’ technique used by the characters not immediately involved kept them in the picture instead of being temporarily lost off-stage.
So, a tremendous success on the technical side. But you can’t make a successful play on technicalities. It’s the humanity which defines us all that makes any drama, and the reason a writer wants to tell a story anyhow. ‘Lughnasa’ is, after all, stories of real people, with their hopes, dreams, and frailties. For the Mundy sisters, it is a case of them having learned to hang on. To maintain a collective of lives where those hopes and dreams have already been passed out by unrelenting time and circumstance.
Esther Reddy’s ‘Kate’ is the grim glue which holds the family together in a period when the sporadic performances from the Marconi radio are the only entertainment left in the sisters’ lives. Her income as a teacher is their life’s blood, her strength from the same occupation pulling them through the days and weeks and months and years. Both elements suddenly vulnerable because a brother priest has been returned from his lifetime on an African mission.
Siobhan Murphy plays ‘Maggie’ as the one who works hard to both run the kitchen farm and rescue spirits whenever they threaten to plummet towards the point of no return. A family without a Maggie rarely lasts long in difficult times and situations. But they often keep the gaiety going despite inwardly feeling desperate.
‘Agnes’ as lived by Maryclare McMahon has also come to spin in her own quiet orbit after coming through girlhood without bringing a man with her. She has taken to herself the responsibility of minding Eilis Philips’ ‘Rose’, who everyone knows is not strong enough to survive in the world beyond the home.
Along with Maryclare, Charlene Kilroy is among the talented new people in the Kilcullen Drama Group. Her ‘Chris’ is the unwed mother in the sisterhood who has so far been able to stay young at heart, thanks in part to the needs of raising her son Michael, played by Donagh Noone. And every occasional time the father, 'Gerry', comes to see them, she still goes weak at the knees.
Michael’s role on stage is invisible, as he is the narrator of the story as a grown man, filling in the past gaps, and the futures for them all, from the sidelines. His series of monologues are all the more compelling because the other characters hold their positions while he talks.Maurice O’Mahony’s ‘Fr Jack’ is initially peripheral, but his homecoming pulls at a loose thread which is to rather quickly unravel the family after the curtain comes down. With Phil Cummins’s ‘Gerry’, the dreamy father of Michael and would-be husband of his mother, except she knows in her heart that it wouldn’t work, they are two ‘broken men’ of different sorts.
The women never do get to the Lughnasa harvest dance that year, nor have they done for many years. But they figuratively dance in a ring around the two men and the boy, holding hands in a dogged attempt to protect them, and themselves, from the inevitable.
It only takes one in such a ring of dancers to fall, or the circle to be broken by one of those inside, and the protection is gone.
All those on stage, and behind it, have come through with yet another marvellous presentation from Kilcullen Drama Group. ‘Lughnasa’ ended last night, with close to 900 people having enjoyed it over the run. None among them would disagree that the standing ovation was truly deserved.
