Asolo Rep's 'Dancing at Lughnasa' looks back at a magical summer

Brian Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa” is a bittersweet remembrance of things past. The memory play is set in rural Ireland in the summer of 1936. For the Mundy family, it’s the time when things fell apart and the center couldn’t hold.

The adult Michael (Tyler Michaels King) is the man with the memories. He’s the narrator, and he tells the story from his adult perspective, looking back at his 7-year-old self — a child born out of wedlock in a judgmental culture. 

In the magical summer of childhood memory, Michael, his mother and her four sisters share a cottage. They live at the edge of poverty, but find fleeting joy in music, dance and a radio that doesn’t always work. 

The Mundy sisters are always working. Kate (Gina Costigan) is a schoolteacher at a Catholic parish school; the others do piecework, like laundry and glove-stitching. So long as they pay the bills, the Mundy family’s separate peace endures.

But Father Jack (Mark Benninghofen) upsets the household’s precarious balance when he returns from missionary work at a leper colony in Uganda. He had contracted malaria — and also “went native,” as they used to say. 

The line between the rituals of Catholic Christianity and African animism blurred in Father Jack’s fevered brain. Once that happened, the Church shipped him back home. But rural Ireland’s not that far from its own pagan traditions. 

The Harvest Festival is coming up in August — a rebranded version of the Celtic festival of La Lughnasa. (There are whispered rumors of drunken farm boys turned into human torches by its bonfires.)

The Church in County Donegal wants to put a stop to such devilish nonsense — and thinks Father Jack is a poor role model for today’s youth. Kate’s taken Father Jack into her home. The Church is Kate’s employer. She fears they’ll fire her to force Father Jack out of town. Kate has reason to fear.

Friel’s spoken language is a Joycean dance of words. Director Joe Dowling has a good ear, and he’s sensitive to the playwright’s speech rhythms. Every character has a unique voice. Casual phrases echo like musical motifs. 

Dowling captures the playwright’s dance steps with a seemingly matter-of-fact approach. With his direction, you’re a fly on the wall observing life as it happens in the Mundy home. Or the way Michael remembers it.

The actors don’t miss a step. King’s Michael is the play’s memorable narrator. He poignantly plays his childhood self in scenes where he interacts with other characters. His innocent 7-year-old self didn’t know what was going on. His adult self does, and it’s poignant.

King’s Michael looks back without anger at a lost world. Costigan’s Kate is the oldest sister — a devout Catholic schoolteacher who fights to keep the family together. She comes off as harsh and strict — a police officer for the reality principle. It’s a thankless task, but somebody has to do it. 

Derdriu Ring’s Maggie is the beating heart of the home — a warm-hearted, sharp-witted, riddle-spouting woman who shouts down the family’s fears. 

Maeve Moynihan’s Rose was not meant for this world. This sweet, simple soul might also be simple-minded with an unspecified disability. Her Rose is childlike, innocent and trusting — perhaps too trusting. 

Image courtesy of Adrian Van Stee

Doireann Mac Mahon’s Christina is the youngest Mundy sister and Michael’s mother. Her character’s romantic yet disillusioned by the lad’s wandering father. He’s broken her heart, but she’s still madly in love with him. 

Clare O’Malley’s Agnes is deeply devoted to Rose and works tirelessly to help support the family. She harbors her own feelings for Gerry, but keeps them to herself. 

Gerry (Collin Kelly-Sordelet) is a charming, rakish rogue. He’s Michael’s largely absent Welsh father and Christina’s ex-lover. His big dreams fluctuate from selling gramophones to teaching dance to fighting with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. 

The flighty fellow proposes to Christina, but she declines. She knows Gerry wouldn’t stick around for long. It’s not his nature. 

Benninghofen’s Father Jack isn’t all there — or so it seems. You initially think he left his heart in Africa — along with his mind. Then he has several moments of clarity. These usually revolve around his experiences in Africa. You realize that Father Jack hasn’t lost his mind. He’s changed it. His time in Uganda has tuned his mind to a different worldview.

It’s a profound revelation. The playwright reveals it offhandedly, without any blood and thunder. Friel’s Pulitzer prize-winning drama avoids excessive dramatics. For plays tackling the clash of God, gods and belief systems, this breaks the mold.

Like Anthony Shaffer’s “The Wicker Man” and Peter Shaffer’s “Equus,” Friel’s play deals with the resurgence of paganism in modern times. Needless to say, he takes a far gentler approach than the Shaffer brothers. No horses are blinded, no policemen set on fire. 

In a more strident play, Father Jack would be a mad pagan prophet. He’d start a bonfire in the village square and proclaim the gospel of La Lughnasa. Nah. Father Jack is a merely an addled eccentric with aphasia who picked up a few African rituals. 

Friel’s play suggests a détente between paganism and Christianity. But it’s only a suggestion. There’s no grand message about religion, politics or culture. Friel takes sidelong glances at the big picture. But he’s more interested in the small picture — the granular details of a family coming apart. The picture he paints is as unsentimental as it gets. And utterly realistic.

Many Americans get their notions of Ireland from Irish Spring commercials and old John Ford movies. You won’t find that Ireland in Friel’s play.

“Dancing at Lughnasa” is a true memory play, not a nostalgia play. Nostalgia is false memory — it’s a sentimental dream of an imaginary past. This is the real deal.

And it’s not a pretty picture.

Friel’s rural Ireland is a place of struggle, loss and unforgiving social judgment. He shows you a family of hardworking, faithful people. The Mundy family holds onto their core values and traditions. They’re good Catholics, good people. They keep the faith. But their community doesn’t keep faith with them.

La Lughnasa approaches. The sisters have one last wild, free dance to a reel on the radio. The lights dim; the radio goes silent; the dance becomes a memory.

Later on, Kate has an epiphany. She realizes that, “hair cracks are appearing everywhere.” She fears the family’s fragile happiness is about to collapse. Her words prove prophetic.

The adult Michael looks back without anger at this lost summer. And the last time his sisters danced like no one was watching.