| |
Theatre listings >
Dancing At Lughnasa
- Tour Musical World British European Scottish Premiere .
Dancing At Lughnasa - Dundee Rep.
Maggie - Irene Macdougall.
© photographer 2003
|
Playwright - Brian Friel.
Director - Dominic Hill.
Designer - Trevor Cox.
Costume Designer - Phyllis Byrne.
Lighting Designer - Fleur Woolford.
Choreographer - Rita Henderson.
Voice Coach - Ros Steen.
Company - Dundee Rep Resident Company.
Cast - here .
Venue - Dundee Rep Tay Square www.dundeerep.co.uk
01382 223530 .
Dates - Previews: Sat 15 & Tues 18 March at 7.45pm
19 March - 5 April at 7.45pm not Suns Mats: Sats 22 &
29 March at 2.30pm
Run Time - 2 hours 40 mins including 15 mins interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Generally fine fettle.
There's a whole cottage and its surroundings sitting on Dundee Rep's stage,
and with the Dundee Rep cast you'll be transported to Friel's Donegal
and the Munday sisters.
The production sees the company back on top form, if I can forgive the
lack- lustre narrator wee boy Michael, played by Alexander West,
whose accent never got that far on opening night. It is a difficult part
being a narrator, most playwrights should cut theirs but Friel just gets
away with it.
We meet the Mundays in the dying days of summer when the bilberries are
ripe and so is the corn. So are the sisters but only one has born fruit,
Claire Dargo's Chris she's the mother of Michael, she's in the
younger set along with Emily Winter's Agnes, a woman striving to
seem attractive but there's a thinness in her mouth. She does, though,
look out for Rose, the youngest and least blessed with brains. Janine
Mellor is a delight in this part as she dances in their kitchen or
towards the end of the play finds a direct moving eloquence.
Dancing At Lughnasa - Dundee Rep
Chris - Claire Dargo, Rose - Janine Mellor, Kate -
Ann Louise Ross and Agnes - Emily Winter
© photographer 2003.
|
The two oldest sisters are Kate, Anne Louise Ross, who tries to keep
the lid on all the buzzing urges in her sisters, and Irene Macdougall's
Maggie. Ross's part is less showy but powerful in its restraint.
Macdougall's contains earthy energy and I have never seen her better.
Maggie is a woman of a certain age half mad with frustration and longing,
she's the catalyst who gets them all, even Kate, dancing in abandoned, unfullfillable
desire. While both hers and Mellor's are stand out performances,
all five female actors make these sisters heart recognisably real.
There are two other men around - Father Jack, Sandy Neilson, their
Brother who took his religion to Africa and returned, Kate becomes uneasily
aware, with another one. It's closer to the Irish old Gods than the one
he used to celebrate in Masses. Dropping in twice is Gerry, Michael's
father, a wonderful charmer of a part which has Keith Fleming sparkling,
making you smile as you know he'll never quite return exactly as promised.
Directed by Dominic Hill and given a hyper-real set by Trevor Coe, this
production shows the company in generally fine fettle for the new joint
artistic directorship of Hill and James Brining (presently Artistic Director
of TAG).
© Thelma Good 20 March 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast: Michael - Alexander West, Chris - Claire
Dargo, Maggie - Irene Macdougall, Agnes - Emily Winter, Rose - Janine
Mellor, Kate - Ann Louise Ross, Jack - Sandy Neilson and Gerry - Keith
Fleming.
Theatre listings >>
|
|
