Dancing at Lughnasa
Dancing at Lughnasa
In the turbulent times of 1936, the five unmarried Mundy
sisters live in a modest croft at the heart of a rugged farm
outside Ballybeg, a small town in Donegal. Dancing at Lughnasa
is told from Michael, the son of Christine Mundy's memories, summoning back to the end of that
summer, on the eve of celebration to the harvest diety Lugh, god
of music and light. But the celebration of the play...the music
and the light of it...really lives within the sisters, a gift
they share with each other and the ones they love. In the Mundy
household, they are simultaneously the storm and the buoy, a
sharp judgment will always give way to loving forgiveness, a
reproach is merely a prelude to a song or a cup of tea or an act
of kindness. They are a family marked by the unfailing courage
they possess for each other. But now it is on the threshold of
autumn, where events will conspire to irretrievably change the
golden season of the Mundy's.
Dancing at Lughnasa breathes through the festival of
Lughnasa, the brilliant images of African customs that Jack
imposes on the misty farm, and the kites that Michael chases,
wonderfully decorated by his own hand - an early artistic vision
that will later allow him to so eloquently recall a family to
whom fate has dealt a severe blow. They meet their fate bravely.
The memories of that summer in 1936 haunt Michael into manhood.
Memories of love and loss. And of the women dancing, in a final
celebration of life before it changed forever. |
