Dancing at Lughnasa

It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator, set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936

The five Mundy sisters all unmarried, live in a cottage outside of Ballybeg. The oldest, Kate, is a school teacher, the only one with a well-paid job. Agnes and Rose knit gloves to be sold in town, thereby earning a little extra money for the household. They also help Maggie to keep house. Maggie and Christina (Michael’s mother) have no income at all. Michael is seven years old and plays in and around the cottage.

Recently returned home after 25 years is their brother Jack, a priest who has lived as a missionary in a leper colony in a remote village in Uganda. It becomes clear that he has “gone native” and abandoned much of his Catholicism during his time there.

Gerry, Michael’s father, is a charming yet unreliable man, a traveling salesman who sells gramophones He visits rarely and always unannounced. A radio nicknamed Marconi, which works only intermittently, brings 1930’s dance and traditional Irish folk music into the home at rather random moments and then, equally randomly, ceases to play. This leads the women into sudden outbursts of wild dancing.

There is a sense that the close home life the women/girls have known since childhood is about to be torn apart. The narrator, the adult Michael, tells us this is indeed what happens.

Auditions are from 2.00pm to 5.00pm on the 18th and 19th March and

Performance Dates are; Friday 23^rd Saturday 24^th and Sunday 25^th June and the following weekend on Friday 30^th June; Saturday 1^st July and Sunday 2^nd of July.

For further information please contact Andrew Wallace on 0467 038 755 or email on wallacea@westnet.com.au