Tag Archives: Brian Friel

“Dancing at Lughnasa” at the National Theatre

Framed around the childhood of a narrator we take to be the playwright, Brian Friel’s award-winning 1990 play is a powerfully subtle piece about memory. We see the frustrated lives of an unmarried mother and her four spinster sisters in 1930s rural Ireland. Beneath mundane details are suggestions of what these women really felt and glimpses of what they wished for.

Running parallel to events, ruminations on recollection itself are exquisitely delivered by Tom Vauhgan-Lawlor, who plays this all-important narrator. It’s clear that this vision of the past is about emotion rather than action. We shouldn’t trust what we see (although note how tempting it is to do so), not because we are being misled but since so much is unknown. The tone is melancholic, despite many moments of affection and joy. 

Tom-Vaughan-Lawlor-in-Dancing-at-Lughnasa-Photo-Johan-Persson
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor

The pace set by director Josie Rourke is appropriately calm. During almost three hours little happens (and ‘big’ events are always off stage). It is the characters who are enthralling with every detail worthy of attention. What we get are snatches remembered from youth – riddles, toys and jokes or arguments that impress themselves on a child – small moments, but vivid.

There are larger themes in Dancing at Lughnasa – big changes in Irish politics and society, with the theme of emigration regularly infringing on life – and Rourke carefully follows Friel’s lead to handle these, mostly, lightly. An exception is Father Jack, a brother who has returned from missionary work having ‘gone native’. The link to the play’s wider pagan themes is stated rather than explored, an unusual misstep, which leaves Ardal O’Hanlon somewhat wasted in the role.

Siobhan-McSweeney-Ardal-OHanlon-and-Justine-Mitchell-in-Dancing-at-Lughnasa-Photo-Johan-Persson
Siobhan McSweeney Ardal OHanlon and Justine Mitchell

The detail in the writing is captured in a set of strong performances with each actor having to portray frustrations felt as well as a sense of opportunities lost. Our narrator’s mother, played by Alison Oliver, is appropriately to the fore. Her siblings – Justine Mitchell, Louisa Harland, and Bláithín Mac Gabhann – are excellent. These are restrained women, with the weight of the world on their shoulders, which makes any escapism potent. Feel free to pick your favourite although it is hard not to highlight Siobhán McSweeney’s comedy skills as the fifth sister. Her character is described as “light-hearted”, but it is the moments when her smile slips that are most powerful.

There is much unsaid in Dancing at Lughnasa, with plenty of the communication being non-verbal. It turns out that the summer of 1936 was the last time that the family were all together (typically, we don’t see this dramatic split). Is it the time or the memory that comes to be described as “alluring and mesmeric”? Either way, those are responses that the audience comes to share with the narrator. As with time lost and memories themselves, the play lingers in the mind.

Until 27 May 2023

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photos by Johan Persson

“Faith Healer” at the Donmar Warehouse

Rain is falling as we are introduced to the ‘Fantastic’ Frank Hardy, an itinerant performer, whose life and miraculous show lie between the “absurd and the momentous”. Es Devlin’s stunning set creates a box of brilliantly lit water that returns between each of the four monologues that make up this intense and intriguing revival of Brian Friel’s 1979 play.

Stephen Dillane joins a line of famous names to tackle the title role. It’s a restrained performance, uncompromisingly demanding, carefully playing with the “sedation of incantation” that runs through the script: place names visited, adventures and traumas, are repeated in the softest tones. Hardy knows whether or not miracles will happen – that his success depends on chance – so his gift is also a curse.

We meet Hardy’s mistress and manager. As the former, Gina McKee’s accent is offputting at first – we’ve been told she’s from Yorkshire, and that’s not the only lie we discover from hearing her side of the story. The detail McKee invests in her scene makes it moving and engrossing. After these hear-a-pin-drop performances there’s some respite, thanks to Ron Cook’s appealing Cockney artistes agent. Though stories about a bagpipe-playing dog are funny, this isn’t comic relief. Cook presents a tired and disappointed man with subtlety.
The performances are awe-inspiring but the material is consuming to the point of claustrophobic and difficult because of its complexity. The drama comes from having three unreliable narrators, who lived together for many years but don’t meet during the play and are talking about events in the past. We see Hardy’s wife after his (possible) murder, and his manager after she has committed suicide, but the chronology is not explicit and how much time passes between scenes is opaque. Friel’s script shifts and changes and needs the lightness of touch that director Lyndsey Turner provides. A heavy hand could damage such first-class storytelling. Rendered so impeccably, the play is absorbing.

Until 20 August 2016\

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photos by Johan Persson