[In October 1991, the entire Abbey Theatre production arrived in New York from Dublin, and Dancing at Lughnasa opened on Broadway. In the following review of that staging. Kroll praises every aspect of the play, declaring it "as powerful and haunting as anything [Friel has] ever written. "]

Who else but an Irish dramatist would come along to remind Broadway—musical-drenched, play-starved Broadway—what a real play is? The Irish have practically been custodians of the English-speaking stage for 100 years: Wilde, Shaw, Synge, Yeats, Beckett. Brian Friel, 62, is the true inheritor of that tradition, and Dancing at Lugh nasa is as powerful and haunting as anything he's ever written. In a spasm of sanity, Actors' Equity has allowed the entire Abbey Theatre production to come over from Dublin. The emotion generated by Friel's writing, the superb company, the precise and poetic staging of Patrick Mason, the beautiful set, is almost shocking—so this is theater.

For Friel, being Irish is a uniquely equivocal fate, both curse and blessing. In this autobiographical play, set in 1936, we see that fate worked out within the poor Mundy family in Friel's imaginary town of Ballybeg. There are nine characters: five women, three men and a radio, an old battery-driven set that breaks the provincial routine with its crackling bursts of music. Kate, the most rigid of the five sisters, complains that the radio "has killed all Christian conversation." But not only Christian conversation: in this Irish play about rituals, it's the church that has lost its sacramental power. Back in the hills the ancient pagan festival of Lughnasa is still celebrated. Uncle Jack, a priest returned after 25 years in Africa, can't forget the native rituals that have converted him to paganism. The radio transmits the blithe rites of popular culture, as the young sister Chris whirls to "Dancing in the Dark" with Gerry, the wastrel father of her son.

The play asks, with anger and compassion: where, in a world of material and spiritual poverty, are the observances that can bring transcendence to individuals and communities? One answer comes in the play's most stunning scene, in which all five women break out into wild spontaneous dance—a bigger showstopper than anything in a $5 million musical. The actors touch a startling range of chords from crazy glee to tragic desolation. Donai Donnelly is once again the consummate Friel player as Uncle Jack. Recalling how even the African lepers danced ecstatically, the old priest's face blazes with joy. In Africa he found the light at the heart of darkness.