Brian Friel's award-winning play "Dancing at Lughnasa" will be performed by a Dartmouth cast on the mainstage for a week, opening tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. in the Moore Theater.
The cast members interviewed said they were excited about performing in such a powerful and lively play.
"It's just such a good mix of dancing and happiness," cast member Jo Weingarten '98 said. "It's a very bittersweet play that supports both sides of life, both wonderful and dismal at the same time."
Drama Professor Paul Gaffney, the production's director, raved about Friel's play. "I certainly think it's his best and he's been writing plays for a long time," Gaffney said.
The play won the 1992 Tony Award for best picture after opening at the Abbey Theater in Ireland, then touring London and arriving in New York.
"It made a big hit very quickly," Gaffney said.
"I've loved the play since I saw it in London four years ago," Jen Barber '97, the stage manager, said. "Our production is bringing out the wonderful qualities of the show."
Cast member Amanda Jones '97 said the play is quite different from past mainstage productions which were mostly classical theater performances primarily because "Dancing at Lughnasa" is more modern.
The play recounts the childhood memories of one of its characters living in Ireland in the 1930s. The story focuses on five unmarried sisters caught in an era of changing fortunes and mores.
Among these memories are the fall festival of Lughnasa, a harvest celebration of bonfires and dances beginning on the first of August, and the emergence of radio.
The year is 1936, and the government, under the influence of the Catholic Church, has begun an attempt to more tightly control moral behavior by enacting the Dance Hall Act, which restricts dancing to public places where it can be supervised by civil and church officials.
But the sisters find they cannot hold back their instincts, and stepdance around their kitchen and burst into bawdy song.
Gaffney said he is optimistic that the cast and crew will carry the play with a strong showing on opening night.
"You always approach opening night with some trepidation but we've been very solid for some time now," Gaffney said.
Jones said the preparation for "Dancing at Lughnasa" has involved an unusual amount of work, but added she was confident that it will pay tomorrow night.
"I feel like we're really well-prepared," she said. She explained that the cast members had to perfect northern Irish accents and traditional Irish dances for the play.
Gaffney said, "It's a very smooth production but it is more complicated than it's liable to appear to the audience," he said, commenting on the tremendous detail that is inherent in expressing the realism that accentuates the play.
Weingarten said that the intricacies of the script are carried off with the crucial element of depth on stage.
"It seems like a lot of flat dialogue when you read [the script]. It becomes a lot more dynamic on stage," she said. This is because of "the music and dancing and tension behind their daily lives."
The play deals with a lot of issues that would have spurred a level of controversy during its the era in which it is set, Jones said.
Weingarten agreed that there are controversial issues at hand.
"It deals with women in Ireland in the very Catholic 1930s, where they can either knit or teach or get married," she said, adding that the illegitimate son of one of the Mundy sisters proves similarly controversial.
Controversy aside, cast member Tercelin Kirtley '98 said he has had fun with his character.
"It's brought out the Irish in me," he said. "If anyone has an ounce of Irish in them, they have to see the play."
