Dramaturgical Packet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of Brian Friel’s plays feature characters with disabilities. Characters who are simple or confused can symbolize problems related to the struggle of distinguishing between reality and fiction, or sanity and insanity. Such characters are Rose and Jack in Dancing at Lughnasa. Rose is the simple character of the play, indicating that she is a bit slower than her other sisters. Indeed, we see this in her giddy attitude and her troubles with finding her way around town. Although Rose is simple, she sees things that her other sisters don’t see. She is in love with a married man, and refuses to give up on him, even going up into the “back hills” to meet him. These back hills are in the area of the Lughnasa festival activities. She sees the beauty and fun in these pagan festivals. She understands the impulse to dance and carry on, where as society, and especially her sister kate, see this as wrong and they try to hold it back. Is this impulse sane or insane? In her innocent nature, Rose shows us how questionable the sets of rules that society has put on women really are. Things Rose sees as natural and healthy are deemed sinful by a Catholic Irish society.

 

Father Jack, having just returned from a ritualistic society in Africa after serving as a missionary there, adds further to this theme. He suffers from mental confusion and memory loss. He cannot distinguish one sister from another, often cannot remember where he is, and can’t even remember all of his own language. He is set in the ways of African life and customs. Jack cannot distinguish between Catholic and pagan customs because of this, and he has given up on the Christian ways which restrict people. Ancestral spirits, sacrifice, and rituals are now closer to his heart than Catholic faith. For Father Jack, there is no distinguishing between reality and fiction. Is there really a huge difference between Catholicism and paganism? Is one sane and the other insane, or are rituals a natural human impulse? (Niel)