Certainly the American Players Theatre has done this before, but not in my memory. But for Dancing At Lughnasa, the back wall of their venerable main stage in The Hill Theater was open so we could view the bit of prairie in the background. And I wondered why until the play started and a number of the Mundy sisters came running and skipping across the prairie to their shared home at mid-set. And this grand entrance sets the scene for ‘girlish’ frolics and fun, even though our sisters are now young adults. Well all but the eldest sister Kate, who is a school teacher and something of the head of household here…and determined to maintain a home and social standing of decorum and etiquette proper to adult women in rural Ireland.
The Mundy’s live in a small cottage just outside of the fictional village of Ballybeg in County Donegal. There are five sisters in all. Kate, the eldest, is a school teacher. Maggie, the uninhibited soul of the clan, is also the one who has taken on the drudgery of keeping the house. Agnes and Rose earn a bit of cash by participating in the local cottage industry of knitting mittens. And Chris is the youngest, and the mother of seven year old Michael Evans. They are also caring for their older bother, Father Jack who has just returned from a 25 year sojourn as a missionary in an African leper colony. He is home to recover from malaria but there seems to be something more as well. This is both a blessing and a curse.
Director Brenda DeVita writes in her notes in the program, “…I have to confess a tiny bit of pride, a satisfaction rests on my chest. I have a lump in my throat. I love my people. They are the people of this play.” Well, she has also put a lump in my throat and they are my people as well. And there should be more than a tiny bit of pride involved…she has assembled an amazing cast from APT’s 2024 ensemble and she has clearly brought them together on stage with a genuine feeling of joy, angst, and love leaving little doubt that this is an actual family that we are seeing here.
Tracy Michelle Arnold brings us a believable Kate, a school teacher and the eldest sister. She functions as a matriarch of sorts given her role in the community as a school teacher and principal wage earner in the family. Arnold brings to life a bit of her stern nature and sense of Christian devotion but at times easily melts to a softness around her family and particularly Father Jack…well until! And Arnold also clearly depicts Kate’s disquiet around her treatment by the local priest and later her ‘release’ from her teaching duties.
Rose is a bit of a question mark…the most girlish of the sisters in a youthful way…because of apparent developmental issues. Elizabeth Reese portrays her here with all of the ease and joy of the childlike but as quickly shifts to a disquieting and tragic mood when Rose has apparently been taken advantage of my a local man.
Laura Rook’s Agnes is often hard to read at times but Rook provides us with an industrious knitter and yet still a soul that rocks with the family. And she apparently has a bit of a secret interest in the elusive Gerry Evans.
Chris is the youngest but has an older edge because she is raising her son, Michael Evans, her out of wedlock ‘love child’. She helps around the house and watches over Michael, but is still easily distracted by the attentions of Gerry Evans, Michael’s father. Maggie Cramer exudes an incredible energy and joy in life when Gerry is around the house…and as easily becomes moody when he fails to fulfill his promises…because we later learn that he can’t.
And Maggie, dear, sweet, Maggie. Colleen Madden is most often the keystone to any cast that she is in, as she is here. But, she was born to play Maggie Mundy. Madden gives us a Maggie in touch with her soul and is easily expressive of her spirit while quietly, well not always, accepting her role in the household. While working to outdo or overplay her sisters during their intervals of merriment, Madden’s Maggie is also ready to make her point about their reliance on her labors. Even when she wasn’t speaking I couldn’t ignore Madden’s movements about the stage.
And the ‘man’ about the house is Father Jack, returned from Africa to recover from malaria but also surrounded by a bit of mystery. A local hero particularly in the eyes of Kate, if you ignore his time spent as a chaplain in the British Army during World War I, Jack has served as a missionary in a leper colony in Africa. James Ridge is a superb Father Jack, providing the shuffling body of a very ill individual and a man seemingly older than his years. And Ridge presents just the right moments of hesitation as he forces himself to remember his sisters’ names and other common English vocabulary words that he’s forgotten while overseas speaking primarily Swahili. But as his physical control returns and his memory improves, we find the reason for the reticence of the local priest to engage with the Mundy’s. Father Jack has gone native and Ridge excitedly and vigorously acts out and vividly describes the various native ceremonies that he’s committed to memory and explains how ‘we’ used them in Africa.
And Gerry? I am not sure exactly how to describe him but he is a cad and a romantic one at that. Nate Burger’s portrayal gives us a very active and somewhat suave Welshman who has romanced Chris and fathered Michael. Is being Welsh a foreign enough attraction for small town Irish girls? But he is footloose in a number ways, popping in and out of the Mundy home with a disdainful irregularity. But each appearance brings new hope to Michael and Chris…a hope that will remain unrequited.
And our last character is Michael Evans, a seven year old boy in August 1936 when these events take place. But the seven year old does not appear in the play…he is spoken to, looked after, spoken of, and searched for…and obviously loved and cherished by the entire household. But the physical Michael Evans is played by Marcus Truschinski. And this Michael is an urbane and well spoken adult who is the narrator here…and Truschinski slowly materialized on stage from the various wings to give us a succinct and telling narration on the backgrounds, causes, and results of the various events that we witness in Ballybeg. This adult Michael is of indeterminate age in the play, but as presented here, clearly a free agent adult.
One last kudo that I think is very important. I would like to thank Adrianne Moore, the Voice and Text Coach, and Director DeVita for providing for the lilt and melody of the Irish accents here without getting so dense as to obscure the dialogue. Clearly hearing and understanding the text here is very important to understanding the story.
I apologize that my APT season was later than normal this year and that there are only a few dates left to see Dancing At Lughnasa: but Ticket Info and Other Info can be accessed here.
