'Dancing at Lughnasa' at APT has its own unique accent

Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times

There’s a lot going on with how the characters speak in Brian Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa,” a wistful drama set in August 1936 in a northern Irish village.

Friel’s story centers on five sisters from fictional Ballybeg who have dense northern accents and shared vocal patterns, particular to a family of women. The men who enter and exit their lives — an elderly missionary, a love interest — carry clues about their travels in the way they speak.

“So often, everyone has the same accent in the play,” said Laura Rook. Rook plays Agnes, the third-oldest Mundy sister. “It’s RP, received pronunciation, or it’s classic British.

“But in this play you have a family unit. Part of the dialect work has been about, ‘What does a family sound like?’”

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