Dancing at Lughnasa

Shortchanging characters for lovely vistas of the Irish countryside and evocative music, Brian Friel’s play, Dancing at Lughnasa, about five unmarried sisters coping with change in 1930s Ireland gets a condensed, unfocused adaptation. Streep is in gear as the domineering one, and Gambon is heartbreaking as their unstable missionary brother back from Africa, but it’s all too rushed to do justice to the emotional impact of the original stage work. B-