How, as a director, would you present the role of Michael in Friel's 'Dancing At Lughnasa'? What theatrical impact would you hope to achieve for the audience?
             As with every character, a director must analyze and interpret Michael as they see him and then try to get this across to the audience without making him stand upstage and give them a profile of his and his aunt's lives.
             As a director, I think that Michael's monologue at the Beginning of Act 1 is a key speech in terms of interpreting Michael's character. From reading the text I would say, Michael (who is looking back at his memories) is still a young man, perhaps in his twenties. I think this because his memories are so vivid. When you are still young you can still remember and relate to feelings you had as a child, you still understand why you thought or felt what you did. And so, in my opinion, Michael (as an adult) should be staged in their mid-twenties. I also think that it would be easier for the audience to imagine a youngish Michael as a little boy rather than a man of about 45 as a little boy. Michael's speech, for me, does not reflect an unhappy childhood, yet it doesn't show that he was completely happy either.
             "I had a sense of unease, some awareness of a widening breach between what seemed to be and what was, of things changing too quickly before my eyes, of becoming what they ought not to be."
             I see Michael perfectly content with his surroundings. Nothing within the play makes me conclude that being brought up by five women and no father has affected him in any way. It seems that he would react to things as any normal boy of seven would. This part of Michael's character really needs to be conveyed to the audience so that they have no reason to look at him in a different way to how they would look at any other little boy.
             As a director I'd want the audience to like Michael, there would be no reason for them to feel sorry for him and they shouldn'
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