Theater Review—

Sherman Offering A Beautiful ‘Dancing At Lughnasa’

By Julie Stern

SHERMAN — Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa is what is known as a memory play. Like Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, Lughnasa is narrated by a someone recalling a crucial episode in his past, while the actors dramatize the events as he remembers them. Like those two classic works, this one is a luminous, powerful and evocative piece of theater. Under Francis A Daley’s direction, The Sherman Players have done a beautiful job of bringing it to vivid life.

Michael Mundy is a young man in his thirties, recalling the summer of 1936, when he was seven years old, living with his unmarried mother, Chris, and her four sisters in a cottage outside of Ballybeg, County Donegal, Ireland. They live on the edge of poverty. Only Kate, the oldest, works outside of the house, teaching in the village school. Maggie cooks and keeps house for the rest of them, while the two youngest sisters, Agnes and the simple-minded Rose, work as knitters.

Through the filter of memory, the boy Michael is unaware of the hardships of their existence. To him, it is an exciting summer, mingling three important events: the return of his Uncle Jack after 25 years as a missionary priest in a Rwandan leper colony; a visit from his father, who promises him a bicycle; and the acquisition of a radio, which plays music that the sisters can dance to.

What the child doesn’t understand, slowly grows apparent to the audience. Gentle, kindly Father Jack, who was sent home on sick leave, has  apparently abandoned the Catholic religion for the primitive rituals of the natives he ministered to. Now he is showing an unhealthy interest in the old Irish pagan customs of the harvest festival of Lughnasa.

Kate has been fired from her teaching job because of her brother’s unseemly behavior. Gullible Rose is seduced by a married lothario from the village. A knitting factory  recently opened in town, relying on cheap labor, will put the cottage industry knitters out of business. Gerry, Michael’s father, makes all sorts of promises he has no intention of keeping. And, despite the atmosphere of family love and loyalty to one another that pervades the household, things are falling apart. 

The cast assembled by director Daley are uniformly excellent. Miles Everett is compelling in the dual role of the adult Michael and the voice of his seven-year-old self. Tracy Hurd is reminiscent of a stern young Katherine Hepburn as Kate.

Jackie Decho-Holm makes the earthy, Woodbine-smoking Maggie into the heart of the household. Alison Bernhardt makes Rose into a mixture of glorious abandon, and confused limitations, while Maya Daley gives a powerful performance as her shy, protective sister, Agnes.

Marilyn Grace Hart mingles circumspection and timid hope as the unwed mother who brought shame on the family by having a child out of wedlock, but who still flutters with excitement when her erstwhile lover shows up in town, played with rakish charm by James Hipp. Steve Manzino is absolutely wonderful as Father Jack.

Leif Smith’s set design of a crowded cottage, David White’s sound design with haunting Irish music, and Terry Hawley’s  period costumes all add to the spirit and effectiveness of the production.

Dancing at Lughnasa is a fine, often funny and entertaining, but ultimately deeply moving play, that is beautifully done here at Sherman. It’s on for another three weekends and you should definitely go up there to see it.

(Performances continue until October 16. See the Enjoy calendar or call 860-354-3622 for details including reservations.)