'Dancing at Lughnasa' opens in Navan

When the Celtic festival of Lughnasa named after the god Lugh of ‘light, and harvests’ comes to Solstice which has its mythical connection to the birth of the ‘gods and goddesses of light’, an audience can look forward to a truly celestial evening of theatre.

This is exactly what Navan Theatre Group (NTG) is planning with a very special production of Dancing at Lughnasa. This is the 25th anniversary of the premiere in the Abbey Theatre Dublin in 1990. It is also an honour for the group to pay tribute to Brian Friel who died in October 2015.

This year’s cast was drawn from a group of 35 people who came to the community centre in early September for the readings. The casting was a searching time for director, Des Lynch, who is well known throughout the locality for his long association with theatre and musicals.

The final cast is experienced in theatre and has rehearsed two to three nights each week moving the beauty of Friel’s Donegal world from page to stage. This year the cast includes some new and returning actors.

Kate is played by Nichola McDonagh who returns to NTG having previously played Rosie Redmond in The Plough and the Stars in 1997. Locals will be familiar with Nichola as one of the singing McDonagh Sisters. The central role of Rose is in the capable hands of Joanne Donoghue who has had many starring roles in both theatre and musicals. Cathy O’Brien plays Agnes and has a lost vocation as a knitter!

The ebullient Maggie is bringing the best out of Loretta Byrne who comes from the musicals. The flighty Chris is played by Fiona Madden who is new to the group and she has skipped her way through Ballybeg in preparation for this production. Her love interest is played by Craig Regan and he is pitch perfect as the wandering Gerry Evans. Robert Clarke who has earned a reputation as an engaging storyteller is Michael the narrator. Finally, the story of the Mundys of Ballybeg is blessed to have the reverend Jim O'Leary as Fr Jack who himself needs more absolution than even Friel can provide.

The Navan group experienced a sense of privilege and pride in the preparations for this year’s production of Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa. Friel attended to all his plays and Navan Theatre Group is amongst the last amateur Group to be granted rights by personal consent of the author. When the word came that Brian Friel had passed on in early October 2015 there was sadness amongst the cast and crew and a commitment to honour one of Ireland’s greatest writers with a production of Dancing at Lughnasa that re ignites the essence of Friel’s acclaimed memory play. This is Navan Theatre Group’s fifth time to present a Friel play and they have always connected to the heart of audiences with the beauty of language and the depth and resonance of the storytelling.

Alongside Philadelphia Here I Come and Translations, Dancing at Lughnasa is perhaps the best known and most widely acclaimed of all the Friel plays. In 1991 it won an Olivier Award for best play and in 1992 won three Tony Awards including best play, best actress and best director. In the 25 years since the play was written the five Mundy sisters from Ballybeg in Co Donegal have been revealed to theatre audiences worldwide including in London, New York and Sydney and on film when Kate was played by actress Meryl Streep. Dancing at Lughnasa is also generally regarded as Friel's most autobiographical work with glimpses of his own trip to London as a young man in search of two aunts who had gone there years earlier.

The drama takes place in the fictional town of Ballybeg, the story is told from the perspective of an adult Michael, recalling the summer he spent at his aunts' home when he was seven years old. The five Mundy sisters, live in a cottage just outside of this small, Irish town. Kate, the eldest, is a schoolteacher; Agnes and Rose knit gloves and help keep house with Maggie and Christine (Michael's mother), who have no income at all. Their brother, Jack, has also recently returned home. Jack is a priest, who lived in Africa for 25 years, working as a missionary. He is suffering from malaria and has trouble remembering many things. Gerry, Michael's father, is charming and completely unreliable. He visits rarely and always unannounced. During the summer Michael spends with them, he sees his aunts' search for and find the potential for love - only to lose it as the hardships of life begin to unravel the tight knit sisterhood.

Brian Friel's multi award-winning play is a masterpiece, portraying the strength and bravery of five sisters who dance at the pagan festival of Lughnasa in a final celebration of their lives, before those lives change forever

 

Wednesday 25th to Saturday 28th November 2015

8pm Solstice Arts Centre, Navan

Tickets: Wed/Thurs €14 and Fri/Sat €16, Students €12

046 909 2300 or www.solsticeartscentre.ie