SOURCE: Review of Dancing at Lughnasa, in Financial Times, 27 April 1990, p. 25.

In mid-April 1990, Dancing at Lughnasa premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In the review below, Armistead finds the play "[rich with atmosphere, redolent with an admittedly equivocal nostalgia … unfolding like a slow smooch to the music of time. "]

A wheatfield spotted with poppies is the backdrop for Brian Friel's new play which reopens an Abbey expansive and spruce after phase one of a £5m development project. If the theatre's management is looking ahead (smart new bar and foyer mark this stage of the facelift), this première from one of Ireland's most distinguished writers finds its artistic team in nostalgic mood.

Dancing at Lughnasa is a memory play, set in the summer of 1936, which takes a sad, affectionate look at a rural Ireland inhabited by doting spinster aunts whose meagre livelihoods—knitting gloves for the local...