Nr. 3 (32) anul IX / iulie-septembrie 2011 - ROMDIDAC

the Mundy sisters. This is one of the most exquisite instances of non-verbal
communication featured in the play.
When I remember it, I think of it as dancing. Dancing with eyes half
closed because to open them would break the spell. Dancing as if language
had surrendered to movement – as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony,
was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be
touched with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its
hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms
and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no
longer existed because words were no longer necessary ... (Friel 71)
The dance portrays a moment when unity accompanied by “individuality
and sexual frustration finds an almost frightening release” (Lojek 82). The
shortness of the explosive moment in set in contrast with the ongoing routine
of the sisters’ lives. The song is “The Mason’s Apron”, an instrumental Irish reel
played by a céilí band. Wiring on it, Friel emphasized this aspect of music:
And a similar piece – only more anguished and manic – in Dancing
at Lughnasa. And in both plays the purpose was to explode theatrically
the stifling rituals and discretions of family life. And since words didn’t
seem to be up to the job it was necessary to supply the characters with
a new language. Because at that specific point in both plays when the
céilí music is used, words offer neither an adequate means of expression
nor a valve for emotional release. Because at that specific point emotion
has staggered into inarticulacy beyond the boundaries of language. And
that is what music can provide in the theatre: another way of talking, a
language without words. And because it is wordless it can hit straight and
unmediated into the vein of deep emotion. (Friel in Lojek 83)
There is a certain sense of the grotesque in the description of the
sisters’ dance. It may resemble a Dionysian fertility rite. In contrast with Father
Jack’s memories of the African festive dancing, which seem to have a certain
warmth, the sisters’ performance lapses into a caricature. In Africa:
We light fires round the periphery of the circle; and we paint our faces
with coloured powders; and we sing local songs; and we drink palm wine.
And then we dance – and dance – and dance, children, men, women,
most of them lepers, many of them with misshapen limbs, with missing
limbs – dancing, believe it or not, for days on end! It is the most wonderful
sight you have ever seen! (Friel 48)
Interestingly, when the boy’s kites can be seen in the last scene of the
play “on each kite is painted a crude, cruel, grinning face, primitively drawn,
garishly painted” (Friel 70). The sisters’ dance gains its rhythm gradually:
The music, at first scarcely audible, is Irish dance music – ‘The Mason’s
Apron’, played by a ceili band. Very fast; very heavy beat; a racous music.
[...] Agnes and Rose, Chris and Maggie, are now all doing a dance that
is almost recognizable. They meet – they retreat. They form a circle and
wheel round and round. [...] Kate dances alone, totally concentrated, totally
Ex Ponto nr. 3, 2011
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