Dancing at Lughnasa: A Play [Paperback]

Brian Friel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1998

It is 1936 and harvest time in County Donegal. In a house just outside the village of Ballybeg live the five Mundy sisters, barely making ends meet, their ages ranging from twenty-six up to forty. The two male members of the household are brother Jack, a missionary priest, repatriated from Africa by his superiors after twenty-five years, and the seven-year-old child of the youngest sister. In depicting two days in the life of this menage, Brian Friel evokes not simply the interior landscape of a group of human beings trapped in their domestic situation, but the wider landscape, interior and exterior, Christian and pagan, of which they are nonetheless a part.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"There is no doubting we are in the thrall of as masterly a dramatist as the theatre possesses." --The Times

About the Author

Brian Friel was born in Omagh, County Tyrone (Northern Ireland) in 1929. He received his college education in Derry, Maynooth and Belfast and taught at various schools in and around Derry from 1950 to 1960. He is the author of many plays that have taken their place in the canon of Irish Literature, including Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964), Lovers (1967), Translations (1980), The Communication Cord (1982), and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). In 1980 he founded the touring theatre company, Field Day, with Stephen Rea.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (December 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571144799
• ISBN-13: 978-0571144792
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A simple review, December 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dancing at Lughnasa: A Play (Paperback)

This play is based in the small town of Ballybeg. A small town where the people have small, closed off minds. Life is hard back then, as the adult Michael comments the industrial revolution only comes to Ballybeg at the end of the play, and this is te 30's and Ireland is going through an economic depression.. This is the story of the 5 Mundy sisters, Kate, Agnes, Maggie, Christina and Rose. All with different, totally unique personalities. Also in the family are Father Jack, who has returned from African missionaries who has become "sick" and nativeised and the illegitimate son os Christina. The father is Gerry, an irresponsible, charming man from Wales. The play follows their lives through the month of August (Lughnasa = the irish word for August, coming from "Lugh" the pagan god of the old irish). I thought this was a very good book, nothing seems to happen, yet everything changes irrevocably. It is a page turner, I was warped into the world of the Mundys, so different to my own. Emotions, feelings and fears are woven into this masterpiece of Irish literature.The best part of the play for me, was the ending. Absolutely brilliant.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Dancing...the very heart of life and all its hopes.", September 29, 2004

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dancing at Lughnasa: A Play (Paperback)

Set in Donegal in 1936, during Ireland's change from an agrarian to a more industrial economy, Brian Friel's haunting ensemble drama of five sisters and their priest brother reveals the economic, social, and religious pressures in the rural community of Ballybeg on the eve of the harvest festival of Lughnasa. Forty-ish Kate, who sees herself "in charge," is the only real wage earner in the family. Rigid, severe, and completely lacking in humor, she believes pagan celebrations, such as Lughnasa, which provide fun and enjoyment in the countryside, are "uncivilized." Her brother Jack, the priest, however, on furlough from his missionary work in Uganda, is now virtually a pagan himself. His work has shown him the need of the poor for happiness, dancing, and community celebration, even if it is not church-sanctioned.

The other Mundy sisters help illustrate the ironic chasm between Kate's attitudes and those of Fr. Jack. Maggie, the fun-loving, free-spirited, and most humorous of the sisters, constantly bursts into song and dance and longs to go to the town dance. Christina feels no shame whatever about her love-child and thoroughly enjoys the summer visit of his father, Gerry Evans, with whom she dances spontaneously. Aggie and Rose, who earn small wages knitting gloves, work tirelessly as the family's sad, "unpaid servants," constantly chafing against Kate's imposition of her own values on them. When the local priest fails to rehire Kate because of Fr. Jack's apparent paganism, the family is devastated, but it is at that moment that they recognize the need to celebrate life itself.

The narrator is Michael, Christina's love-child, now in his fifties, who sets the scene and comments on the action throughout. Though Michael himself participates in the action as a child, the child is invisible to the audience. The characters speak to him as if he were real, and the adult Michael responds, but to the actors on stage, it is the narrator who is invisible. The message of the play is far stronger here than that of its film version, starring Meryl Streep. In the play Kate is more hostile, and the fates of Aggie and Rose are revealed early, not withheld till the end. Fr. Jack's paganism is not regarded as a mental aberration in the play, and the "clan of the round collar" is opened to scrutiny. The play, though dark, is ultimately a joyful celebration of life itself, a life not bound by organized religion. Mary Whipple

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful play of Irish culture and family dynamics, November 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dancing at Lughnasa: A Play (Paperback)

I was recently in Ireland and heard about Friel, an Irish native, and his powerful work. When I returned, I ordered Dancing at Lughnasa and didn't put it down until the last scene was complete. This is a riveting story of the family dynamic among five sisters and the men in their lives. Beautifully written I could hear each voice, each accent!, could see the sisters as they knitted in the kitchen and danced in the garden. One of the most interesting techniques Friel uses is the non-existant son of one of the sisters. His words are mouthed by the narrator and I'd be interested to know how it fleshes out on stage, but it is wonderfully done here. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in theatre, Irish culture, or good reads.