Lughnasa leaves dancers in dark

With the Hollywood onslaught of all things green and Gaelic, "Dancing at Lughnasa" joins the likes of Ned Devine and "The Matchmaker." Lughnasa differs, however, with its dramatic attempts in presenting the slightly stable Irish parable about sisterhood and cultural identity. "Dancing at Lughnasa" comes not from County Donegal, as is supposed, but from the theatrical stage.

The film is an adaption of the stageplay, written masterfully by Brian Friel, a playwright whose work has been carefully butchered to squeeze into the confines of celluloid frame. The final scene has been drastically removed and replaced with snippets of moments that relate the characters' outcomings, much like the final scene of "Animal House." While it allows for a director to quickly reduce total screening time by a good many minutes, it is anti-climatic and assumes that the already-drained

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics Catherine McCormack, Sophie Thompson, Meryl Streep, Kathy Burke and Brid Brennan dance outside their home.

audience won't stick around for any more - which may be the case after a few hours of mind-numbing dialogue.

Friel's fantasy follows the sad story of five spinster sisters who inhabit the family homestead left them by their dearly departed mother. The youngest sister, played romantically by Catherine McCormack, has forsaken the family name with her lustful endeavors and has brought to her poor sisters an illegitamate son, a love child who must suffer through the over-protective mothering of five depraved women. When the slightly unbalanced elder brother of the sisters returns home after 25 years of missionary work in Africa, the sisters must struggle in order to deal with his presence. After being thrown out of the church for his changed and radical religious views, Jack brings to the home with his collection of tribal memorabilia a plentiful supply of shame.

Financial matters abound and worsen as Kate's lay off from her teaching position at the local school cuts off the family's largest supply of income. When Michal's father, Gerry, appears for the first time in 18 months of cross-country cycling, another stone is thrown at the already bruised sisters, as he incites Kate's wrath and unsatisfaction.

Director Pat O'Connor, Irish by birthright and family name, brings a realistic air to the film, giving the viewer an objective rendering of the tale. Together with Kenneth MacMillan, the film's director of photography, O'Connor paints the lush earth-toned landscape of the Irish hills and thereabouts. Much attention is given to the surrounding world, a place where societal hush-hush brings the Mundy sisters more problems than they already have yet to handle. It seems that Irish Catholic propriety demands a woman to be married when young and pure, and a house full of spinsters registers just above a house of evil. In somewhat humorous scenes, girls of the town gossip about Kate's spinster lifestyle.

What isn't showcased is the hypocrisy surrounding the town's religion. While it seems proper for the Irish Catholics to conduct themselves becoming to the good word, they engage each year in a pagan celebration, "the festival of Lughnasa," where drunkeness and dancing by firelight ensues. Kate's younger sisters are tempted by the thoughts of meeting men at the spring lust fest, but she scolds them, due to their grossly aging celibacy.

A device from the play that O'Connor attempts to use in the film is that of the "Marconi," the humorously-dubbed radio that becomes the sister's sole source of entertainment and life pulse. The only captivating scene of the film arrives when the sisters, in their last moments of bonding sisterhood, dance a jig to the tune emitted by the crackling radio.

As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So do two of the sisters, who realize that their presence makes matters more difficult and decide to head to the big city to pursue careers as dressmakers.

O'Connor's decision to include a musical version of Yeat's "Down by the Salley Gardens" over the end credits is quite fitting, but "Dancing at Lughnasa" has not transferred poetically to the screen. It's disappointing to see that the film version of the play cannot even compete with the original script. It might have been wise for Friel himself to have worked on the screenplay, thereby allowing for an honest piece of art.

While the role of Kate adds another dialect to Meryl Streep's bag of accents, there is nothing particularly spectacular about her performance. Brid Brennan, Sophie Thompson, Kathy Burke and McCormark deliver better dramatic turns as Kate's younger sisters, making for Lughnasa's only highlights. With a dull, slow-moving script, "Lughnasa" remains a festival not to be celebrated.

02-15-99