What: “Dancing at Lughnasa”
When: 7:30 p.m. April 10-12 and 16-19, and 2:30 p.m. April 13
Where: Edward S. Strother Studio Theatre Cost: General Public, $10; Students, $8
It’s the summer of 1936 in a small village in Ireland, and five sisters face the intrusion of the outside world as their isolated safe haven faces industrialization.
Told in the form of a memory, “Dancing at Lughnasa” comes to the audience from the eyes of Michael Evans, who is the son of one of the sisters, Christina Mundy. He recalls two events of the summer: the return of their uncle, who is a missionary priest from Uganda and the arrival of their first radio.
“Both of these interruptions bring the outside world into the women’s sheltered existence and change their lives forever,” said Eva Patton, director of the student performance and associate chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance. “We can probably all relate to the feeling at some point in our lives that the world is moving on without us. These five sisters feel that way.”
Sophomore Shay Stewart plays Rose, one of the Mundy sisters with a mental development issue. Stewart said her condition is not specified within the script, but they believe it to be a form of Asperger’s syndrome. This aspect of Rose’s character presented Stewart with a challenge.
“It is difficult to play a differently abled character without creating a caricature of her life,” Stewart said. “I didn’t want to approach Rose as being unintelligent, but rather uniquely intelligent, hyper-aware with cat-like reflexes and joyously childlike.”
The show studied and embraced Irish culture by involving a foreign exchange student. Patton noted the presence of Susannah Wilson, who is originally from Belfast, Ireland, has been an integral part of the show.
Wilson is studying theatre design and technology with a specialization in costuming. While working backstage for “Frankenstein” last semester, some of the actors in the play referred her to Wendy Saver, the dialect coach for the play.
“I was thrilled there was a show about my own country when I was so fr away from home,” Wilson said. “I just wanted to be involved because it was about my own culture and I naturally felt very proud and patriotic.”
Wilson assisted the student actors with the music, dancing, accent and culture of the setting they are portraying.
“I cannot stop being overwhelmed with their dedication and professionalism towards all of their roles,” she said. “It’s a very inspiring environment to be in.”
Patton said she thinks the heart of the play can be summed up through one of Evan’s first lines: “Even though I was only a child of seven at the time, I know I had a sense of unease, some awareness of a widening breach between what seemed t be and what was, of things changing too quickly before my eyes, of becoming what they ought not to be.”
She continued, saying, “The play for me is a live portrait of a family in transition, people moving from innocence to experience and a young man’s recollection of that time in his youth when everything changed.”
Even though this play’s storyline is about a family being forced to break apart due to circumstances beyond control, Patton said it ends on a hopefulnote.
“The play does not shy away from the bleak outcomes these characters face and yet, it is ultimately a celebration of life and what it means to live in a world that is constantly changing,” she said. Stewart said a message of “Dancing with Lughnasa” shows that familial love is not ruined from family dysfunction and disintegration.
“While ties of sisterhood cannot weather all storms, that does not invalidate them as connections of strength and affection,” she said.
The play opens 7:30 tonight at Strother Studio Theatre.
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