Dancing at Lughnasa

Kauzlaric’s opening tableau for Friel’s 1990 memory play is a doozy. The Mundy-Evans clan, bodies held tight in 1930s Irish propriety, stand for a photograph. As they’re each named by a narrator, they step out of frozen sepia and into their bucolic home of the past. There’s a sense of urgency in these first moments—sound designer Joe Court’s crackling camera bulb is almost an explosion—but the story that unfolds in Act I leaves pressing fears aside.

It’s a simple tale: Four sisters help the fifth raise her illegitimate son, Michael, in the Irish country. A prodigal brother returns from missionary work in Africa a broken man; Michael’s father makes an unexpected return. Michael grows up to be our narrator, and though his monologues are peppered with references to coming doom, the play doesn’t really own them. The women work hard, they sacrifice—but softly, and always prettily. When rebellious dancing does arrive, it seems a reaction to a bad day, not years of disappointment. Act II gains some steam, thanks primarily to the incredibly strong ensemble, in particular Simone Roos as Michael’s mother, refusing to give up on love, and Don Bender as the mentally itinerant priest.

It’s no crime to be simply lovely, and Lughnasa’s world certainly is. Alan Donahue’s set is a wonder, painting the Mundys’ entire lives with little more than a tree, table and radio. Though Kauzlaric’s production could do well to embrace the play’s pain as much as its joy, it’s still a moving portrait of a family’s downfall.

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