Dancing at Lughnasa
Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Actors Co-op/Crossley Theatre
Through June 12
RECOMMENDED
There are many reasons that Brian Friel’s elegiac character study Dancing at Lughnasa has become a theatrical staple. One is that the Tony award-winning play is an excellent and affecting work, while another is that it offers terrific roles for five actresses. Actors Co-op demonstrates all the virtues of the show in a beautiful production that rings with tart humor and subdued desperation.
In 1936 Ireland, five sisters have welcomed back their older brother Jack (Mark Bramhall) after decades away serving as a priest in a Ugandan leper colony. He’s a bit scattered and doesn’t recall all of his English, but blunt, cigarette-smoking Maggie (Rory Patterson) assures everyone he’ll be fine. Single mother Chris (Lauren Thompson) has other concerns, such as raising her young son and the occasional visits of his charming father Gerry (Stephen Van Dorn). Agnes (Maurie Speed) is trying to make ends meet by knitting gloves, while Rose (Tannis Hanson) is covertly seeing a married man. And Kate (Nan McNamara), the responsible if controlling sister, is worried that their fragile existence is about to fall apart.
McNamara gives a wonderfully complex performance as Kate that portrays the difficulties of familial responsibility. In one moment her anger fiercely explodes at a negligent sister, while in another she’s a doting aunt to her kite-building nephew — all the disparate sides of the character displayed in a seamless combination. Bramhall makes the most of his stage time as the gone-native Jack, weak and wandering at first but then enthusiastic as he describes his life in Africa, to the moral horror of Kate. Patterson is the comedic heart of the play, enlivening every scene with amusing vigor. She also nails a dramatic monologue where she vividly recalls a long-gone dance.
Thompson is sympathetic as Chris, raising her son without a father, but she positively blooms in scenes with Van Dorn, radiating the sad joy of someone who knows what they want and also knows they will never have it. Van Dorn is simultaneously grand and self-deprecating as Gerry, a man just as capable of dancing into Chris’s life as he is likely to dance out of it. Hanson is moving as Rose, rebelling against Kate for the sake of love, and Speed is quietly memorable as the more private Agnes. Finally, Michael Knowles does fine work as the grown-up son Michael, narrating the story with empathetic grace.
Director Heather Chesley gets superb work from her ensemble, but Michael Kramer’s spare kitchen set is angled so close to the audience that the actors are sometimes having to step over errant feet. Julie Hall’s choreography expertly shows the emotional release that dancing is for the sisters, and Wendell C. Carmichael’s costumes evoke the poor but proud family.
This is subtle evanescent stuff, and it’s a lovely production.
Actors Co-op Crossley Theatre, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8:00 p.m.; Sun. 2:30 p.m.; through June 12. www.ActorsCo-op.org. Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.
