Josie Rourke Archives - The Play Podcast

063 – Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel

by Douglas Schatz | May 24, 2023 | Podcast Episodes

The Mundy sisters
Dancing at Lughnasa
National Theatre May 2023
Photo by Johan Persson

063 – Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel

Brian Friels’ magical memory play, Dancing at Lughnasa, is set at the time of the Irish festival of Lughnasa, when traditional pagan celebrations marked thanksgiving for the harvest. The festival in question takes place in the summer of 1936 in the fictional village of Ballybeg, where the five unmarried Mundy sisters live. The events of that summer are recounted to us as the long-ago memories of the seven-year old son of one of the sisters; memories that are possibly unreliable, but are also funny and poetic and profoundly poignant.

Friel has been called the ‘Irish Chekhov’, partly because many of his plays, like Dancing at Lughnasa, take place in the same rural setting, where he charts the nuances of family dynamics against the backdrop of a defined time and culture. Friel wrote Dancing at Lughnasa at the peak of his career in 1990, in the period when he worked with the Field Day theatre company and produced his other masterpieces Translations and Faith Healer. Loyal listeners will recognise that we covered the latter in episode 43 of the podcast: listen here.

As we record this episode, Dancing at Lughnasa is playing on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre in a gorgeous new production directed by Josie Rourke. I am thrilled to have the privilege to talk with Josie about this spellbinding play.

PS. Coincidentally, Oliver Soden, our guest in our last episode on Noël Coward’s Private Lives volunteered Dancing at Lughnasa as one of his favourite plays, and recommended it for the podcast. We’re delighted to be able to do so Oliver!

Josie Rourke

Josie Rourke is an acclaimed theatre and film director, and the former Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse and the Bush Theatre in London.

During her time at the Bush she programmed early work from some of our best playwrights, including James Graham, Lucy Kirkwood, Nick Payne, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne.

During her tenure as the first female Artistic Director at the Donmar between 2012 and 2019, there were a great many notable productions, including Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare Trilogy, Mark Gatiss in The Recruiting Officer, Tom Hiddleston in Corialanus, and Conor McPherson’s The Weir, which also transferred to the West End. Likewise her production of Les Liaison Dangereuse in 2015 transferred to both the West End and Broadway. Other credits at the Donmar include: Saint Joan, Measure for Measure, Sweet Charity, The Vote, The Machine, and Privacy.

Other directing includes Much Ado About Nothing, with Davis Tennant and Catherine Tate; the musical City of Angels; and Men Should Weep at the National Theatre.

Her most recent theatre credits include As You Like It at the new Soho Place theatre in December last year, and Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons starring Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman in the West End earlier this year.

She has also directed the film Mary Queen of Scots, starring Sercha Ronan and Margot Robbie, which earned BAFTA and Oscar award nominations. Her last screen project was Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads with Jodie Comer.

Recommended Play

Josie recommended two plays: The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare,
and 2nd May 1997 by JackThorne.

Josie Rourke in rehearsal at the National Theatre
Photo by Manuel Harlan

We have footnotes for this episode …

The Footnotes to our episode on Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa include more on the meaning of dancing in the play, as well as some observations on the characters of Kate and Father Jack.

Footnotes for Patrons

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115 – The Dance of Death by August Strindberg

Oct 6, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death is set in a remote army base on the coast of Sweden, where an army captain and his wife are trapped together in an unhappy marriage. The captain, bitter at his lack of promotion, and his wife, frustrated at having been forced to give up her career as an actress, occupy their empty hours tearing into each other in a brutal dance of mutual cruelty.

Strindberg’s scorching portrait of marital strife was written in 1900, but has had a lasting influence. Arthur Miller dubbed Strindberg, “the mad inventor of modern theatre”, and echoes of his unflinching dissection of marital discord can be seen in the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and John Osborne.

Sir Richard Eyre adapted and directed a wonderful production of Dance of Death at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames earlier this year, and I am delighted that Sir Richard joins me in this episode to guide us through Strindberg’s blistering onslaught on marriage.

114 – Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Sep 22, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is described on the title page in the first publication of its text in 1598 as “A Pleasant Conceited Comedie.” I imagine that the epithets were intended to highlight the play’s courtly aesthetic, its frothy merry-go-round of courtship, and above all perhaps, its ostentatiously intricate word play. For it is a play rich in the love and perils of language.

I am joined to assay Shakespeare’s conceited comedy by the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, Tom Littler. In the summer of 2026 Tom adapted and directed a magical double bill of Shakespeare, producing Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing in repertory, and staging them both ‘en plein air’.

113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Aug 24, 2026 | Podcast Episodes

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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.

As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.

Josie Rourke

by Douglas Schatz | May 24, 2023 | Contributor

Josie Rourke

Josie Rourke is an acclaimed theatre and film director, and the former Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse and the Bush Theatre in London.

During her time at the Bush she programmed early work from some of our best playwrights, including James Graham, Lucy Kirkwood, Nick Payne, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne.

Other directing includes Much Ado About Nothing, with Davis Tennant and Catherine Tate; the musical City of Angels; and Men Should Weep at the National Theatre.

Josie Rourke in rehearsal at the National Theatre
Photo by Manuel Harlan

Podcast Episode(s)

063 - Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel

Recommended Play(s)

Josie recommended two plays: The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare,
and 2nd May 1997 by JackThorne.