Life is a struggle for the five Irish Mundy sisters but love for each other keeps them going in “Dancing at Lughnasa,” presented Feb. 24-March 3 by Brian Friel at Devonshire Playhouse in Skokie.
Performances of the multi-Tony Award-winning show are 7 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.
“It’s always been one of my favorite shows,” said director Eileen Hand. “I can relate to that show because I come from an Irish Catholic family with six sisters and one brother. There’s something very poetic about that show. I love the images that Brian Friel creates through the narrator’s eyes. I especially love watching the relationship between the sisters.”
Hand observed that the biggest challenge that the sisters face is poverty. They struggle to be sure there’s enough food for the family, which includes one sister, who is a single mother to a 7-year-old son.
Most of the financial burden falls on oldest sister Kate, a teacher who provides the majority of the family’s income.
Jennifer Ruffner, who plays Kate, studied theater in college but took a 16-year break to raise her two children. Her last performance before that was in “Doubt” at the Cleveland Playhouse when her oldest child was 2.
“Knowing that Devonshire was doing this play that I love, and I’ve wanted to work with Eileen (director Hand), it felt like the right time to hop back in,” she said.
Ruffner described Kate as “very proper. She is very focused on taking care of her family and fulfilling her obligations. The burden of a lot of the household falls on her. She loves her family furiously. She is concerned with what people think of them.”
Kate is more like a parent than a sibling to her sisters, the actor indicated. She is very attached to her nephew. “She finds a lot of joy in watching him grow and watching him learn,” Ruffner said.
Ruffner said she is enjoying learning about Ireland in the 1930s. “The sensibilities were different,” the actor indicated.
“Each sister has their own little piece of how they keep that household going,” director Hand noted.
Chris, the youngest sister, played by Rowan Collins, is responsible for raising her son.
“She loves her son so much,” Collins said. “At the same time she knows he represents a life that she can’t have because now that she’s had a child out of wedlock, and she’s raising him with her family, that’s the life she’s locked into.” It doesn’t help that her son’s father comes in and out of her life.
Collins said that she particularly enjoys working with the other actors “and building the relationships that these characters have with each other together. It’s the most challenging and the most fun.”
The other sisters are played by Cecily Durbin (Rose), Jeri Garcia (Maggie), and Allison Fradkin (Agnes). Rose and Agnes knit to earn extra money for the family. Maggie takes care of the household chores.
“Each sister has their own little piece of how they keep that household going,” Hand said. “For example, Maggie, the second oldest, is the humor in the household and kind of the peacekeeper.”
A lot of difficult things happen to the family in the course of the play but the director said that she told her cast, “We have to counteract all the sad stuff that’s coming with some happy stuff. If it’s played in a way where it’s nothing but sadness, nobody wants to watch that. The challenge of the show is making sure we get this balance of humor and sadness.”
Toward that end, the show concludes with dancing. Hand said that the narrator lets the audience know that “with movement there’s no need for words.”
‘Dancing at Lughnasa’
When: Feb. 24-March 3
Where: Devonshire Playhouse, 4400 Greenwood St., Skokie
Tickets: $20; $15 students
Information: 847-674-1500, ext. 2400; skokieparks.org/events/show-dancing-at-lughnasa1
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.