Dancing At Lughnasa

If you've already scanned through Cranky's review of Dancing At Lughnasa, you already know that he had some real problems with the film. So the man went straight to the horses mouth, and with the aid of stars Catherine McCormack and Brid Brennan, has filled out all those bits and pieces of the story that passed him by the first time. If you are inclined to see the film, here's hoping that my feeble efforts aid in your enjoyment.

This is Kate Mundy, the eldest of the 5 sisters. She is a wee bit maternally possessive of her nephew Michael. A staunch Catholic, she dislikes the annual celebration of the pagan Festival of Lugh, the Goddess of Light and Music. She doesn't like her sisters singing "pagan" songs in her house. Kate is played by film titan Meryl Streep.

Catherine McCormack: Meryl didn't come on like a titan. She just came and became one of the women in this film. She is very down to earth. She had a passion for the story itself. It was a wonderful collaboration. You have your preconceptions beforehand but, on meeting the woman, she was like everyone else in the group. She came to it with no baggage at all. I think she may have herself been intimidated coming into the play, which was largely composed of Irish and English. I was more intimidated, actually, about working with Brid, who created the role.

CrankyCritic: Do you really worry about comparisons between the stage actress and the film role you're going to do? Is that something you considered when you took the job?
Catherine McCormack: No. I didn't worry about comparisons outside the film. It's a film. It's a different medium. When we first came together I was slightly intimidated by Brid, who played Agnes for two years. That was my only worry. I'd seen the play and it was fantastic. There was that first moment of thinking "Am I going to be compared to ... "
Brid Brennan: and I was deliberately trying to intimidate you [laughs]
Catherine McCormack: and you did [laughs]

CrankyCritic: Catherine, it's still very early in your career and already you've been face to face with stars like Mel Gibson and Meryl Streep. . .
Catherine McCormack: I feel very fortunate. I came from a drama school in which we only studied theater. I had no knowledge of film whatsoever from my training. I've learned a lot from the screen and still am. The first film I did was a very low budget British film called Loaded. I was terrified throughout. I used to watch a lot of film but I didn't have a passion necessarily to be a film actress. I'd love to go back to theater just because I loved it when I was at school. I had a passion for that.

Agnes is the quietest of the sisters, perhaps the plainest of the lot as well. She takes it upon herself to try to protect the weakest of the ladies, a simple sister named Rosie. It is a role that won Brid Brennan a Tony Award for her Broadway performance.

CrankyCritic: Brid, how did portraying Agnes differ from stage to screen?
Brid Brennan: The very obvious difference is that the play was opened up into the landscape. It sets these women in a relief that you don't see on stage. There was a suggestion of that world outside on stage. On our set there was a cornfield. To walk onto the set you had to walk through the field. This image of a golden memory and looking back on it, and then the darker threatening sort of scenes emerge. The film, of course, it takes you right out on to that landscape.

This is Father Jack, the brother who has just returned from missionary work in Uganda. He's a bit tetched in the head, but no one talks about his strange obsession with the pagan ways of the Africans.

Brid Brennan: I think they're doing that with looks, y'know, and not daring to speak that word. Each sister has a different attitude to him and each sister is weighing it up in her mind. They couldn't know what he's been in contact with there. It's particularly frightening to Kate, the eldest sister, who is a woman who has a very strong sense of how things should be.
Catherine McCormack: It would probably take a long time to confront the person and talk to him, which is exactly why none of them do. For my character, I last saw him when I was such a young girl that I'm just confused. Was he always like this?