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Theatre Gael’s ‘Lughnasa’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Dancing at Lughnasa”
Theatre Gael chief John Stephens has assembled a young but effectively spirited cast for “Dancing at Lughnasa,” Brian Friel’s memory play based on the secluded world of his aunts —- five spinsterish sisters living in Donegal circa 1936.
So fresh-faced are the actresses playing the moribund Mundy siblings that Stephens, who directed, had to adjust the first-act line in which Agnes declares her age as 35. The actress playing Agnes (Jessie Dougherty) says she’s 30 instead.
What may be harder to believe is that anyone as pretty as Dougherty would be left sitting at home uncourted, reduced to knitting mittens to help fund her sisters’ meager soda-bread existence.
Nevertheless, youth ultimately prevails in this economy-size but resilient production at 14th Street Playhouse. “Lughnasa” —- pronounced LOO-na-sa —- succeeds as a poignant glimpse at the unlived lives and unspoken desires of a generation trapped by poverty and religious convention.
 It does so with a handful of sublimely etched performances —- especially Barbara Cole as Chris, the heartbreakingly hopeful youngest sister and unwed mother of narrator Michael (Nevin Miller); Marci Millard as the hilarious and moving Maggie; and the charismatic Joanna Daniel, as eldest sibling Kate, struggling as the family’s mother hen.
The staging also works without the benefit of theatrical gimmick. The play’s once-celebrated dance sequence —- triggered when a balky wireless spurts to life with an Irish reel, sending the five sisters into paroxysms of tribal release —- holds little transforming magic here. It’s executed with thumping, cloddish realism, just enough to establish the Mundys as creatures of the quotidian, momentarily inspired by spontaneity and the scandalous notion of attending the annual Celtic harvest dance.
The work’s spinal tension —- pagan ritual vs. Catholic devotion —- resonates in haunting fashion as two men disrupt the sisters’ radio days. The first is Father Jack (Larry Davis), their missionary priest brother, who has returned home after a career in Africa. The second is Gerry (Travis Young), the ne’er-do-well father of the narrator, whose unrepentant duplicity is seen as far more destructive than the celebrated polygamy practiced in Father Jack’s former flock.
As the old priest, Davis poses one of the show’s obvious problems, not so much because of his performance, which has an affectionately dotty quality, but because there seems to have been little effort made through costume or makeup to integrate him into the ensemble. The cut of his hair and clothes hardly instructs the audience that he’s a senile missionary put to pasture. He looks more like a bicycle messenger cutting through from Peachtree Street.
 Such details are important in the world of memory, where, as narrator Michael says, “atmosphere is more real than incident.” Still, for the most part, Theatre Gael captures that atmosphere, along with the nostalgic music of Friel’s language, which still reverberates with the echoes of missed opportunity.
THE 411: Through Feb. 20. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. $16-$22. 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4750, www.theatregael.com.
The verdict: A sister act worth catching.
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