Beauty, and an ugly intrusion

'Dancing at Lughnasa" proves the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence , even on the Emerald Isle.

Set in the pastoral Irish landscape in 1936 , the play features four sisters yearning for a better life after acquiring a wireless Marconi radio. As music pulses through the scratchy radio, a passion for dancing is reignited.

The play by Brian Friel originally opened in Dublin in 1990 and won a Tony award as best play in 1992 . The Arlington Friends of the Drama will present "Dancing at Lughnasa " Feb. 2, 3, 9, 10, and 11.

This is not Riverdance. Dancing plays a major role in the story, but director John Fogle was careful not to overdo the choreography. The Lughnasa festival celebrates an ancient pagan ritual.

"I didn't want there to be too much rehearsal because the dancing is meant to symbolize animal instincts and desires. It needed to be urgent. It needed to be spontaneous," Fogle said.

Fogle wanted the dancing to be authentic but not slavishly so. Irene O'Brien, the dialect coach, was the only Irish representative on set. In addition to teaching the cast how to speak in a convincing brogue, she also showed them some basic step dancing.

The play's narrator, a 7-year-old boy, recalls watching his sisters dance for the first time, " dancing as if language had surrendered to it, dancing as if words were no longer needed," he says.

"Friel doesn't trust words, he trusts movement. Being in theater you have to understand movement because lines don't tell the truth. Movement tells the truth," Fogle said.

While the Marconi radio helps the sisters escape reality, it also reminds them of just how harsh reality can be. Listening to the radio, the sisters hear the names Franco and Mussolini for the first time.

"The Marconi brought the outside world to the sisters, but it also obstructed the existing order," Fogle said.

Intrusion is a major theme of the play, and the sisters' identities are under attack.

"Their entire internal navigation is being eroded. The Irish identity they always knew begins to collapse," Fogle said.

Tales of fascism and economic struggle contrast with Ireland's luminous scenery, and the play is structured around this dichotomy.

"As a goal for this show, we set out to create an overpowering sense of place," Fogle said. "We wanted to make the set stunning and not just for the sake of doing it, but because it's a character."

"Dancing at Lughnasa" is the fifth production Fogle has directed for the Arlington Street Theater, and he said this is a good time to stage this particular play. Any American audience will find insights and parallels to modern-day problems, Fogle said.

"America is going through a major identity crisis right now. Ever since 9/11, we have been unsure about who we are and what we stand for. Our social identity is really crumbling," Fogle said.

But there's also a positive message, he says, and it's one to which anyone can relate. "The play is a 'Be here now' story. It's about taking a good look at what you have and not letting the past take away from the future," Fogle said.

"We spend so much time preparing for things that rarely happen. There were so many nights I was awake worrying about how I was going to get my kids through college," Fogle said. "For what, though? Worrying, perhaps, should be dispensed all together."