THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Brian Friel’s evocative memory play is given a beautifully layered, large scale revival by Josie Rourke, working with a pitch perfect ensemble of actors.
The Olivier’s vast stage is transformed by Robert Jones with a winding ‘boreen’ (country lane) through fields of golden hay, leading to the cottage of the five unmarried Mundy sisters. The blue remembered hills of Donegal sit in the background, hazily projected onto a fringe curtain which gives it all the fuzzy hue of nostalgia. The play is great on the soft focus unreliability of our most treasured memories.
By this time, 1990, Friel had become a master craftsman of the stage and this play, which won the Tony and everything else, is a remarkable fusion of Chekhov and Jane Austen. Chekhov, with its focus on unhappy country folk, clinging for sanity to their illusions and longing for escape and Austen for its unsentimental picture of the sheer precariousness of life for women, in this case unmarried ones in 1930s rural Ireland.
Friel’s alter ego, the adult Michael (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), narrates a tale of a halcyon summer, when he was just seven and being doted on by his five aunts, when he was visited by his glamorous but feckless father, Gerry (Tom Riley), who had abandoned his mother Chris (Alison Oliver). That was the summer too before two of the sisters fled to England, not wanting to be a burden after their glove knitting sideline was wiped out by a new factory. Their subsequent tragic fate is recalled mid second act by Michael lending the final scenes a powerful poignancy. Dramatically, it’s a cheat of course, but it elevates the piece from mere nostalgia.
O’Rourke has drawn incredibly memorable performances from this ensemble cast here, who totally convince as a family, with all that irritating yet comforting intimacy as they work, bicker and reminisce.
The sisters have been hosting their uncle, Father Jack, lately returned from the African missions and barely able to remember his English. They tend to him as if he were a celebrity, but they soon realize something’s amiss. Ardal O’Hanlon, as you’d expect, nails the comic elements of the doddery cleric but also invests him with something more, making us realize exactly why he was “sent home”. Tom Riley is perfect too as Gerry, the dashing Welsh roué. Dapper in his Panama hat and elegantly tailored jacket, he skips down the lane, dances with the sisters, tells tall tales and then slips away again, leaving poor Chris to dark despair.
Elder sister Kate rightly worries that they’ll never see Father Jack say mass again or receive that longed-for hero’s welcome from the village and sees this as yet another sign that “hair cracks are appearing” and their world is falling apart. She, the main breadwinner, is also about to lose her teaching job. Justine Mitchell is utterly heartbreaking in the moment when Kate surrenders to this thought and just crumbles. Her Kate is more humane and less the stern Headmistress than usual and her wry wit, even when being pious, leavens every scene.
Siobhán McSweeney (of Derry Girls fame) is perfect as Maggie, the liveliest of the sisters. Puffing on her Woodbines and dancing about the kitchen while singing along to a torch song from the radio, she is actually a rock for Kate and quietly observes all that goes on.
Bláithin Mac Gabhann brings gravitas as well as energy to Rose, the ‘slow’ sister, who is always lovingly supported especially by Agnes (Louisa Harland, also from Derry Girls). In the play’s signature moment, when the women are stirred from their housework by a wild ceilidh tune on the radio, Agnes leaps into the dance first and takes flight with the elegance of a ballerina. In that moment we witness all the pain and thwarted potential of this bright young woman.
The famous dance round the kitchen is staged with impressive restraint by the acclaimed choreographer Wayne McGregor as he cleverly accepts that you can’t top the hedonistic foot stomping excess of a great ceilidh dance. What he does achieve though is to beautifully delineate the characters of the sisters and their individual moments of transcendence, through the dance. These moments of metaphorical resonance are what true drama is all about and this great ensemble expertly pay homage to that.
