DANCING AT LUGHNASA
Imagine Earl Hamner Jr as an illegitimate son growing up under the watchful eyes of his mother and her four doughty sisters in the poverty stricken Irish village of Donegal in 1936. Instead of his writing "Spencer’s Mountain", a best seller that spawns a hit movie and a long running TV show called "The Waltons," he dramatizes his reminisces in a hit play called "Dancing at Lughnasa." Aside from the gender change in family structure, the big difference between Hamner’s original creations and the play is, "Dancing at Lughnasa" doesn’t really have a happy ending.
Basically, "Dancing at Lughnasa" is about a family trying to hold itself together against the inevitable forces of change, much like "The Waltons." A ‘crazy’ brother, a missionary priest drawn to the ‘heathen’ practices of his African ‘converts,’ comes back home to die. A knitting factory replaces the need for the manual labor of one sister and forces the emigration of villagers who were essential to the teaching position of another. The son’s absentee father makes a farewell appearance before rushing off to fight against Franco in Spain. And through it all, a modern invention called radio brings news from the outside world and intermittently stirs the yearnings of lost youth with the sound of music.
The pagan celebration of Lughnasa is the equivalent of the Harvest Ball where the villagers congregate to booze it up and dance the night away! The sisters talk incessantly about the ‘times’ they had and the loves they gave up to hold the family together.
Mostly, holding the family together now means working the land and looking after Christina Mundy’s son, Michael, his Uncle(Father) Jack and dim witted Aunt Rose.
The fine ensemble performances are the best thing about "Dancing at Lughnasa." Equal time is given to each character to measure what is gained or lost by film’s end. Meryl Streep is the effete Kate, the ‘Gander,’ who haughtily heads the Mundy flock. Catherine McCormack manages to bring a certain dignity and reserve to Christina that seems unusual for an unwed mother in1930’s Catholic Ireland. Kathy Burke, who is all Sturm und Drang as Bloody Mary in "Elizabeth," does a complete about face as the cheerful Maggie. Brid Brennan repeats her Tony winning stage role as the grumpy outspoken Agnes who wants to break her ties to the land and escape with Rose, played by Sophie Thompson. Unfortunately, Rose has her own idea of happiness with a lout whose wife ran out on him. Finally Michael Gambon is wonderful as the melancholy brother/priest who embraces the sensuality of nature in his final days.
The biggest problem with "Dancing at Lughnasa" is that it’s more often dull than not. There is a genuine feeling for the women and much of the dialogue is crisp and playfully bitchy. But the Waltonish reflection on the big dance scene as the one event that stands luminous in Michael’s memory, lacks substance. Instead of using wide shots to frame all the sisters together to create a momentary feeling of family unity, director Pat O’Connor chooses to use tighter, one and two shot groupings that tend to isolate individual body movement. This creates a feeling of fragmentation. It gives the idea that, even in their one spontaneous moment of communal joy, the sisters are doomed to go their separate ways. I don’t think this was O’Connor’s intent. The rosy recollection of the adult Michael, as narrator, reinforces this notion. The sense of primal revelry that was supposedly the pinnacle moment of the stage play, with the sisters throwing inhibition to the wind to celebrate the familial bonds that held them together, feels like a ripple when it should have felt like a tidal wave!
Greg Murray