Preview: Dancing at Lughnasa – People’s Theatre, Newcastle
Newcastle’s People’s Theatre continues its Autumn programme with a production of Brian Friel’s Olivier and Tony award-winning comedy play Dancing at Lughnasa, which opens tonight.
Friel’s memory play charts the lives, loves and losses of the Mundy sisters in 1930s Ireland who laugh, cry and dance together until their lives are forever changed by the return of their brother from missionary work in Africa.
Dancing at Lughnasa, which was adapted into a film in 1998 starring Meryl Streep and Michael Gambon, recently made Benedict Nightingale’s list in The Times of the 20 most influential plays in theatre history.
In the play, Michael, now an adult but who looks back through the eyes of his seven-year old self to the summer of 1936 and tells the story of his five aunts, the Mundy sisters.
Describing the play, The People’s Theatre say; “In Ballybeg, County Donegal, the family scrape a living together, dancing, laughing and crying together, as Friel portrays the precarious, and ultimately tragic, lives of the women with humour and poignancy.”
“Mounting tensions between the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church and the underlying presence of the old, pagan Ireland are epitomised in the return of their older brother Father Jack, who comes home unexpectedly after 25 years as a rather unconventional missionary in Africa.”
The production of Dancing at Lughnasa at the People’s Theatre is directed by Kate Wilkins, who has previously directed another Irish play, ‘The Weir’, for Heaton-based theatre.
Speaking about Dancing at Lughnasa, Wilkins said: “Brian Friel’s evocation of these few momentous weeks in the sisters’ lives is humorous, heart-wrenching and hypnotically memorable.”
The production follows last month’s successful performances of Willy Russell’s Our Day Out, and the season continues with Bennett’s The History Boys, which opens at the end of this month.
Dancing at Lughnasa runs at The People’s Theatre, Heaton, from 8-12 October 2013. Tickets are available on the door, from the theatre’s website, or by calling 0191 265 5020.
