Dancing at Lughnasa - A Family Drama That Beautifully Hits Home

By: Bhavna Patel

The award-winning family drama, Dancing at Lughnasa, written by the Irish playwright, Brian Friel, is running at the Hudson Village Theatre from April 4 to April 14. The 1990 masterpiece, which is being produced by the Hudson Players Club, is loosely based on Friel’s own childhood. The family drama, which takes place in the fictional town of Ballybeg, explores the relationship of the five Mundy sisters. The sisters, all living under the same roof, struggle to make ends meet as they raise seven-year old Michael and care for ‘Uncle’ Jack. The family members' relationships are layered. There are both happy times and sad, and moments filled in between which are timelessly relatable.

Lughnasa is a Pagan holiday, which represents the beginning of the August harvest. For the Mundy family, the celebratory festival stirs up inner conflict due to their Catholic background.  Friel was known to cover the complex nuances of family relationships in his work, but also explored the tapestry of Ireland and Northern Ireland’s social and political thread. The play is set in 1936, a time when colonial repression and cultural dissonance were prevalent themes in Ireland. It was also a time when industrial changes were taking place, and when the Marconi radio made a big splash in society, forever changing the way people communicated. 

Left to right: Eric Tremblay, Dawn Hartigan, Susan Walsh, Susan Corbett, Lois Dellar, Tamsin Horsfall. Photo credit: to Phil Gausden.

Rose-tinted memories from that period are narrated by young Michael, played by Steve Walters, the illegitimate child of the youngest sister, who tries to reconstruct the past from that one summer. “Even that in itself starts to ask questions of yourself. One of them is, ‘Is my memory accurate? Is this the truth or is this a memory that I’ve made into my mind as a “happy memory”?’” Walters said.

Walters memorized dozens of pages of monologue for his role, while also prepared to deliver his lines in a Northern Irish accent. “The consistency of that I’m still working on,” he said at the time of the interview. “Donna’s given me some beautiful checks and exercises to do.”

Donna Byrne is the director of the play. Working on a memory play was a new experience for her, but one that was wonderfully brought together with the help of a stellar cast. “There’s many different moments in the play that I’m watching that are beautiful. All of the actors have dove pretty deeply into their characters and really brought them to life so nicely. It’s that for me that’s very exciting to see.”

Byrne and Walters suggest newcomers come to the play to truly understand the wonderful piece of art on stage. “People will see bits of their family in the characters, and they’ll relate to situations that they’ve been in. Family’s struggle sometimes. Relationships struggle sometimes. There are good times and bad times and people will understand that,” Walters said. The Hudson Players Club mandates to foster an appreciation of theatre in the community, and that is just what they continue to do.

Left to right: Eric Tremblay, Dawn Hartigan, Susan Walsh, Lois Dellar.