TOMS RIVER, N.J. — The OCC Repertory Theatre Company will present Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel for two weekends this month in the Black Box Theater at the Grunin Center for the Arts at Ocean County College. Tickets are $24 adults, $22 seniors.
Set in a small Irish village in 1936, Dancing at Lughnasa is the story of five unmarried sisters struggling to survive while raising a young boy, who narrates the tale through his memories. We meet the sisters at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large.
The narrator is only seven years old when his elderly uncle, a priest, returns after serving for twenty-five years as a missionary in a Ugandan leper colony. For the young boy, two other disturbances occur that summer. The sisters acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from correct Catholic women to shrieking, stomping banshees in their own kitchen. And he meets his father for the first time, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these small events spring the cracks that destroy the foundation of the family forever.
Widely regarded as Brian Friel’s masterpiece, this haunting play is a tribute to the spirit and valor of the past.
Performances:
Friday, March 13 7:30 p.m.*
Saturday, March 14 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 15 2:00 p.m.
Friday, March 20 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 21 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 22 2:00 p.m.
*This performance will be interpreted in ASL by students from OCC’s Interpreter Training Program.
Directed by Paul Chalakani. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit grunincenter.org or call the Grunin Center Box Office at 732-255-0500.
About the OCC Repertory Theater Company
Under the direction of Performing Arts Program Chair Paul Chalakani, the mission of the OCC/REP is to create opportunities for college and community participation in various rich and diverse theatrical experiences. The Company seeks to engage, entertain, inspire, and educate to enhance the cultural life of Ocean County College and the surrounding communities. The OCC/REP provides OCC students, faculty, staff, and residents of neighboring communities the opportunity to attend and/or participate in quality performances of theatrical works – musicals and plays, classical and modern, traditional and experimental, through a well-balanced theatrical season. Additionally, the OCC/REP provides an environment for students of our performing arts program to apply what they are learning in a collaborative and encouraging format. The OCC/REP celebrates the power of the theatre to illuminate and mirror the human experience.