Dancing At Lughnasa Review (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield)

18 September 2025 I 19:00 I Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

⭐⭐⭐ I PR - Invite

Establishing Elizabeth Newman's first in-house production as the Crucible Theatre's artistic director, Dancing At Lughnasa's Irish domesticity is wistfully admirable, yet uneventful. As Catholic customs encroach on Pagan tradition, times are swiftly changing for the Mundy sisters of Ballybeg, County Donegal. Dramatist Brian Friel published this play in 1990, where a study on memory and love in the summer of '36 speaks minimally to the audiences of this year.

As Michael Evans recounts his family's misfortunes, the medium of dance is for the Mundy's to "surrender to movement" in the absence of language. Launched with Siobhán O'Kelly's (Maggie) guttural scream into the auditorium, choreographed scenes are limited yet anarchic in there inhibitions. Within a text-dominated performance, Sundeep Saini's movement direction is divinely unrestrained to discover freedoms not found in mundane literalism.

Photography Credit: Johan Persson

First entering the space with a modest body language, Natalie Radmall-Quirke's Kate is a triumph in this revival with a prudent and abrupt tempo fronted by her Catholic faith. Kate's costume (designed by Francis O'Connor) is a prime visual of displacement, in colder colour and conservative cut to define Catholicism as oppressive against her family's interests for Pagan ceremony.

Indulging in Chris Davey's lighting designs to mimic delicate beams of sunlight, and the creative decision to project without mics all contribute to the earthy environments of the rustic Irish countryside. Newman's vision, at times leaning towards the "theatrical reality" of a thrust stage, is inherently conventional for Dancing At Lughnasa. Perhaps where, as an audience member, it loses resonance, our modern crave for something familiar that we can connect with opposed to a period play.

With a giant sun beating down above the action, O'Connor's design is metaphorical for the festival of Lughnasa, the scorching heat seducing a Christian family to join the harvest. Scenery primarily defined by stone and grass in the foreground, the back hills are characterised by bundles of hay and an impasto, textured sky in its idealistic beauty that Rose dotes upon.

Rachel O'Connell's Rose is engrossing and charming in her boundless naivety, the glimmer in her eye that seeks the potential to escape as the more youthful of the Mundy's. Upon post-show research, Rose's developmental disability isn't abundantly clear through this revival, where her sister's anxieties appear to be caused solely by her age. This prior contextual knowledge, given the ambiguous offstage character of Danny Bradley exploiting her vulnerability, would make her character more coherent, other than Friel's description of Rose as "simple".

Photography Credit: Johan Persson

The history of the Mundy family is told through Michael Evans, a generation on from its 1930s setting as Christina's grown child. Kwaku Fortune has a magnificent knack for storytelling, a vocal timbre that is mightily successful in comforting his listeners. However, these lengthy monologues are often used to tell us the story, rather than seeing it unfold. I earlier used the adjective uneventful to describe this production, where much of the action takes place outside the script, instead bearing witness to interpersonal conversations and family memories too distant from us.

I wish I could describe what Dancing At Lughnasa intends to represent. With an attractive visual artistry, metaphors of liberation, tradition, and the disputes between religion and the secular see the Mundy sisters dance for survival. Although with a running time of 2hrs 35mins, the extent of yearning is excessive and heavy-hearted for modern viewers. A collaboration with Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, Newman's Crucible Theatre debut is a meritable predecessor to a compelling first season.

Tickets and Info: https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/dancing-at-lughnasa