On the stage appears a sparsely-furnished house, and in and around the house there are frozen figures. Beside the house in a spot of light, a smiling man speaks in a richly inviting Irish lilt. A memory begins.
The Tower Players’ production of the late Irish dramatist Brian Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa” opened yesterday evening, and has 8 p.m. showings tonight, Friday, and Saturday, and a 2 p.m. matinee Saturday afternoon. The play explores the memories of 30-year-old Michael Evans as he thinks back to 1936 when he was 7 years old, living with his unwed mother and her four spinster sisters. It is August, the Celtic harvest festival of Lughnasa is at hand, and Evans’ uncle, a missionary priest assigned to a leper colony in Uganda, has returned home after many years.
“The entire play is told through Michael’s view as he recollects the last summer his family was truly happy, before things start to fall apart and everyone moves on from this time toward the rest of their lives, which are not nearly as happy,” said senior Matt Sauer, who plays the character.
The play is a slice of history — for Michael Evans, for his family, for Ireland, and for the world. Catholicism, the Spanish Civil War, and poverty each add a layer to this family’s drama and texture to this man’s memories.
“I like Michael’s relationship with his aunts,” director Michael Beyer, the theatre department’s production manager and lighting designer, said. “He doesn’t necessarily talk about the relationships with them directly, but you can see them unfold even if they don’t interact with him directly at all. It has a heartfelt kind of feeling to it.”
As narrator, Sauer is set apart from the play’s action. Monologues accompany tableaux to introduce the characters and their lives. Beyer said he hopes this decision on the playwright’s part will help audience members connect to the family.
“Michael is your narrator,” he said. “In other plays, the narrator does become part of the actual play itself, but this is more of an adult looking at his childhood in a way of realization, and I don’t think it would have the same feeling if he were to jump in the story, or even if we had a small boy.”
The leeway the audience has to use its imagination has been an important part of Beyer’s own connection to the play.
“Way back, my first exposure to this play was having been in it,” he said. “I played Father Jack when I was in highschool, and the play has always been special to me because of that — specifically because of that imaginary interaction.”
Sauer was last seen in last spring’s musical “The Drowsy Chaperone,” in which he played another narrator, Man in Chair. Happy to have a character with a name this time, he said Friel’s story and setup creates a narrator with more complexity.
“He lived through this, and it’s him trying to make sense of his past in light of what has happened and where his life is headed,” Sauer said. “So it’s re-examining the past in the present and looking toward the future and examining the roles of tradition, and family, and identity, really. So the role is so much more deep than the old man in the chair who was just ornery and cranky and cantankerous.”
Set in Ireland’s County Donegal in the fictitious town of Ballybeg, “Dancing at Lughnasa” required its eight actors to adopt an Irish accent. Some learning exercises included speaking with corks in mouths and exercising tongues with chopsticks.
“It was long and arduous, but successful, I think, in the long run,” Sauer said.
Sophomore Elena Creed plays Kate — the eldest, the breadwinner, and, in Creed’s words, the “Catholic-est” of the sisters. Creed said she hopes audiences will be responsive to the story.
“I hope that it will have them laughing and sniffling and crying a little bit,” she said. “I just really hope that it feels like a memory.”
Sophomore Brooke Agee, who plays Rose, the “simple” sister, also reflected on the importance of memory in the play.
“A great part of this show is the memory of it and the bittersweet mentality of it,” she said. “I find it really beautiful, and it’s great to be a part of a play that you can actually get engaged in.”
Beyer, too, said he hopes the play gives audience members the opportunity for remembering.
“While watching it, watch it with a smile,” he said. “There are some difficult things that happen in this play, but I think overall the adult Michael is looking at these difficult things as things that benefitted him in becoming who he is. And watch that coming of age with a smile. Michael had to grow up a lot that year, at the young age of seven, and I think all of us have that moment when we have to grow up. We always look back at those as good times, no matter how strange or disconcerting those times might be.”
Beyer hopes that Michael Evan’s memories in the play will lead audience members to reflect on their own memories.
“Watch those with a smile and understand that I think Michael is looking at those with a smile too,” he said. “As you’re leaving, have some sort of sentimental remembrance of your own childhood. Call your grandma if you can, or just think upon those people fondly that have affected your own world so positively.”
