by Tracey Paleo~

Dancing at Lughnasa is the Chrysalis Stage, at The Complex Theatre in Hollywood, remounting Irish dramatist Brian Friel’s internationally acclaimed and multiple Tony Award winning play for local Los Angeles audiences.

Brian Friel is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an “Irish Chekov” and “the universally accented voice of Ireland”. Dancing at Lughnasa is regarded as Mr. Friel’s seminal masterpiece, which makes this production a very tall order for any company to mount.

Set in Ireland’s County Donegal in early August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg, it is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator. He recounts the summer in his aunts’ cottage when he was seven years old. This story is loosely based on the lives of Friel’s mother and aunts who lived in the Glenties, on the west coast of Donegal. The original play depicts the late summer days when love briefly seems possible for three of the Mundy sisters and the family welcomes home their frail elder brother, who has returned from a life as missionary in Africa. However, as the summer ends, the family foresees the sadness and economic privations under which they will suffer as all hopes fade. The play takes place around the festival of Lughnasa, (pronounced [Loonasa] Lúnasa), in Celtic folklore, the festival of the first fruits, when the harvest is welcomed. The play describes a bitter harvest for the Mundy sisters, a time of reaping what has been sown.

Chrysalis Stage makes an admirable attempt to produce this piece. Overall, everything about it was “even.” It was enjoyable and delightful at times with absolutely lovely performances by Molly Leland as Christina Mundy and Suzy Harbulak as Agnes Mundy. Both actresses brought a sincere authenticity with their soft, musical Irish accents, as much as by their ability to be in the moment. Ms. Leland is especially nuanced in her role as the mother of the narrator, young Michael (played by Gino Costabile). Being still a young woman she feels the longing of youth juxtaposed by the responsibilities of motherhood as she is reminded by her stern older sister Kate (played by Gwendolyn Lewis) and the bitter disappointment of being jilted by Michael’s Welsh father, a charming, sweet and soft-spoken ballroom dancing “rogue” who has abandoned them both more than once. Ms. Leland well effectuates not only the character of Christina but gives us more than just a glimpse of the Irish spirit when it comes to love.

Ms. Harbulak as Agnes, also meticulously presents us a spirited woman with plenty of desire mostly kept hidden, woven into the knitting and household chores that occupy her time. When pushed, her temper gives way to the tough girl underneath who is caring, loving and desperate to dance – enough to push all of her sisters to a glorious frenzy.

Maggie Mundy is endowed with all spunk and bawdiness as a free-wheeling, vine (cigarette) loving, teasing aunt by Andrea Gwynnel Morgan, who gives us the most “out” performance of the evening. Genuine and full of life, Ms. Morgan robustly creates the most sensitive of the Mundy sisters who manages to keep her “cracks” concealed by jokes and audacious talk.

Ms. Lewis dominates as the eldest of the sisters, a very proper Catholic school teacher who works as ferociously at her job and keeping the family in good standing in the town as she does at bullying her siblings into an acceptable order, banishing all thoughts, actions and signs of paganism in the household.

Helen McElwain nicely accords us with Rose Mundy, a simple minded naïf, easily trusting and no less desiring of affection by a man, but one who all of the sisters keep a watchful eye over as they try to protect from her own foolhardy notions of love.

Mr. Costabile (Michael Evens) sweetly intimates the softer side of a man as he affectionately accounts for us, chapter by chapter, the final days of the Mundy family existence as it comes to a close. ZackaRya Santoro entertains and charms with his devil may care escapades as Gerry Evans. And finally Donal “Sully” O’Sullivan gradually and subtly offers a portrait of a man confused and changed, as he attempts to enter an old life he no longer knows or kens.

But like the cracks that appear in the existence of their lives, so were there cracks in this rendition. For all that was wonderful in this production, what lacked was the principal theme of the play as the director himself describes – an irrepressible, irrational, desperate urge to clutch, scramble, howl, sing, laugh and dance in defiance of our fate.

Yes, we do see the tenacious power of the human spirit in these people as presented, but what I really wanted was to “get with” the primal, pagan earthly beings of Irish people everywhere; the spirit that has never been repressed within themselves, nor been silenced by the restrictions of the Catholic Church nor the British nor anyone else in the history of the people. Yes we see the determination of the Mundy sisters – each one on her own respective journey, but we don’t see a letting go. I wanted so desperately to step in with them in their moment of exultation when they danced around the kitchen in the spirit of Lughnasa – which didn’t quite happen. There was a lot of stomping, screaming and food throwing. However, in that moment, I wasn’t convinced.

The set design of the interior house was just right but a bit confusing at the side of the stage where the audience gets a peep of the outside world. Costumes were mundane.

Never-the-less, however slightly incomplete, Chrysalis Stage mounts a joyous, heartfelt realization of Mr. Friel’s most personal work.

Directed by Aaron Morgan. Stage Manager: Ashley Boehne Ehlers

The Complex Hollywood / Dorie Theatre is located at 6476 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA on Theatre Row

Dancing at Lughnasa is performed Thursdays, Fridays an Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 7 pm through August 28, 2011

Tickets: General Admission $20 / Seniors $15 / Students $12

Reservations online atwww.chrysalisstage.com or by phone at 562-212-1991