Actors who will present “Dancing at Lughnasa” at the Chilkat Center next weekend say they’ve stretched for their roles.
The two-act production by Lynn Canal Community Players is a slice of life in a rural Ireland household in the 1930s, recounted through the memories of a young narrator.
Steve Daly is performing in his first stage production, playing the role of a dazed Catholic priest who’s “gone Native” and is suffering malaria after years in Africa. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” Daly said this week. “I don’t know if that makes it easier or not.”
Learning lines has been relatively easy, Daly said. “To go out and on stage, on cue, is the hard part.”
Michaela Chambers, who has acted in about a dozen plays, including community theater productions in California, plays Rose Mundy, one of five sisters portrayed in the show, and the simple-minded one.
Portraying Rose’s difficulties and disabilities involves fewer words and more physical expression, which is a challenge, she said.
Chambers said she believes the play’s family focus will resonate with a local audience.
Christina Baskaya’s last local role was as Lesil in LCCP’s “The Sound of Music” almost two decades ago. To portray Agnes Mundy, the town’s fastest knitter, Baskaya learned to knit, including with four needles Agnes uses to make gloves.
“(Knitting) isn’t the worst thing you have to learn to put on a show. (Fellow actor) Cheryl (Mullins) had to learn to smoke,” Baskaya quipped. She credited director Tod Sebens for casting the show. “I think the roles were picked well.”
What makes drama rewarding is the challenge of adopting another identity, she said. “It’s fun to develop your character over time. Even after rehearsal, we tend to stay in character around the set and have fun with it. It’s great to be creating something on the stage and see the set and props grow up around us.”
The play’s themes of survival and mutual support in the face of hard times is one to which Alaskans can relate, she said. “(The sisters) make light of their challenging situation, even though life and what they know are kind of crumbling down around them. It’s about how people cope in hard times and can still enjoy simple pleasures.”
Much of the humor of the play is the interplay between characters, including the high-strung breadwinner Kate Mundy (played by Heather Lende) and Daly’s priest character.
Mullins, as Maggie Mundy, plays the family’s cut-up. Mullins, who made her local stage debut with LCCP’s “Dixie Swim Club,” provides much of the show’s leavening, said director Sebens. “Cheryl has really found her niche in theater. She loves it and takes to it naturally.”
Other roles include Gerry Evans, a neighborhood playboy portrayed by Dave Routh, and the young narrator Michael Mundy, played by Jacob Brown-Beach.
Show times are 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday Feb. 27 and Feb. 28, and 1 p.m. Sunday, March 1 at the Chilkat Center.
The play also features the Chilkat Center’s new light and sound systems.