Dancing at Lughnasa

Widely regarded as Brian Friel’s masterpiece, this haunting and evocative memory play is the playwright’s tribute to the spirit and valor of the past. In a small Irish village in 1936, five unmarried sisters live together in a spirit of familial unity. These women raise the narrator, Michael, the illegitimate son of one of the sisters, who reminisces on one fateful year amidst the celebrations of the festival of Lughnasa. That summer, his elderly uncle returns after serving for 25 years as a missionary priest in a Ugandan leper colony. The sisters also acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from correct Catholic women to shrieking, stomping banshees in their own kitchen. And he meets his father, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these small events spring the cracks that destroy the foundation of the family forever.