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

Another issue is that of the strictness of Catholicism. We infer from Kate’s
being dismissed that the priest in Ballybeg is authoritarian and cruel. The
positive religious aspect consists in Father Jack’s heroism as a result of his
missionary work in Uganda. The priests’ harshness actually decreased the
authority of the Church. Thus, economic, religious and social reasons may
account for the pattern of Irish emigration and the plight of London’s homeless
Irish, such as Agnes and Rose.
Friel has repeatedly claimed that his plays are addressed to an Irish
audience and that in Dancing at Lughnasa he wrote about his Glenties aunts
not for export but for his fellow countrymen, with a focus on the connection
between the past and the present and on “Irish issues”. That fact that the plays
speaks to the world means that Ireland and the world fundamentally share
some values and concerns.
Since 1999 it [Dancing at Lughnasa] has been produced around the
world, on national, regional, university and amateur stages. In 1998 a
film version appeared, scripted by Friel’s fellow Donegal playwright Frank
McGuiness and starring Meryl Streep. The Abbey mounted a second
production in 1999, as part of the Friel Festival celebrating the playwright’s
seventieth birthday. (Lojek 88)
In conclusion, the Mundy sisters’ story may not have caused a revolution,
in the sense that, in the end they had to comply with the system or they were
defeated by it, but their contribution may make a difference. They lead their
lives in poverty and meager circumstances, yet, their humour, support of each
other and refusal to break allows them to provide a coherent pattern, like in
the illuminating moment of their dance. Their lesson resembles, according
to Friel, the task of the artist: to make us “recognize that even in confusion
and disillusion, strength and courage can exist, and that out of them can
come redemption of the human spirit” (qtd. in Roche 88). The Mundy sisters’
revolution may not be a political one but it certainly is a spiritual challenge.
Women may challenge authority, in Friel’s plays, through linguistic means, such
as in witty Maggie’s case, but what is more characteristic of their moment of
rebellion is performance providing liberation from confining gender role:
It [the sisters’ dance] performs a moment of interconnection not only
between the sisters (though the eldest, Kate, keeps to her own space),
but also with an earlier time in Irish pagan history when the festival of
Lughnasa was an active community ritual, and with other cultures, such
as the leper colony of Ryanga, whose public rituals Father Jack praises.
(McMullan 145)
Ex Ponto nr. 3, 2011
Ironically, such an instance tends to construct female identity in terms of
the corporeal “other” to resist social and male authority, of which the audience
is to become aware through the narrator’s voice, especially that there is some
distance between the audience and the dance cause by the fact that it is the
man’s memory that creates this vision. Michael, the adult, relies on childhood
memories and gilds everything in a golden “mist”, ignorant of poverty, exile
and death, trustful, yet aware of the subversive nature of the play of his
memory.
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