Dancing At Lughnasa review – a thoughtful and funny staging of an Irish great
Siobhán McSweeney leads a stellar cast in the revival at the National Theatre in London.
It’s hard to resist the age-old etiquette demanding no dancing in the aisles of the National Theatre when the Mundy sisters launch into a hedonistic abandon in Brian Friel’s modern classic Dancing At Lughnasa.
Michael Evans (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) recounts a childhood summer at an aunt’s house in the fictional village of Ballybeg in County Donegal in 1936. Uncle Jack (Ardal O’Hanlon) has returned from life as a missionary in Uganda an ailing and out-of-place man. His five unmarried sisters flirt with finding romance during the Celtic festival of Lughnasa but feel the constraints of upholding the home and family reputation built largely by their brother.
But a temperamental gramophone provokes sweet relief from maintaining the decorum. Siobhan McSweeney brings infectious humour to Maggie, one of the aunts based on Friel’s own family. Her Derry Girls co-star Louisa Harland gives a riotous streak to sister Agnes. Justine Mitchell reveals the pressure incumbent on the elder that makes Kate the enforcer of her sisters, as well as on the religious norms expected of Jack.
O’Hanlon avoids playing him as an old fool fit for mockery and shows Jack as a rebellious and well-intentioned elder shunned for his unorthodoxy. The cane-twirling of Fred Astaire tops off the charisma of Gerry, the caddish father of Michael, who manages to charm the boy’s mother Christina (an entrancing Alison Oliver) despite his glaring flaws. Gerry, played with begrudgingly likeable toffish charm by Tom Riley, seizes the opportunity to establish a sense of purpose by joining the Spanish civil war to fight against Franco’s forces, which would be backed by the Catholic church.
Vaughan-Lawlor masterfully reveals the warmth of the memories he is recounting while delivering Friel’s emotive monologues on memory and ceremony. He does not so much cherish the nostalgia but inspects it and he is aided by a shimmering set that evokes misty memories of the gentle summer heat of childhoods.
Director Josie Rourke has done justice to a play by one of the greats of Irish theatre with a staging that is both thoughtful and funny.
Dancing At Lughnasa runs at the National Theatre until May 27.
