About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 2011)
TRAGICALLY DELICIOUS MICROBREWS IN A CAN: WHO KNEW? Like the old Jewish joke about being the Chosen People—"Couldn't You have chosen someone else?"—the phrase "the luck of the Irish" has always carried the tang of irony about it, from the incursions of the Roman Empire to Ireland's current financial crisis, with a potato famine, crushing poverty and a century of violence thrown into the mix. The fortunes of the Irish make for tragedy, on both epic and personal scales. Brian Friel's 1990 family drama Dancing at Lughnasa, currently staged by the Town & Gown Players, is one of the latter, a slice-of-life ensemble piece that deals with the trials endured by a rural Irish family on the brink of the worst of times. Darby O'Gill this ain't. Friel's play deals with the Mundy women, five unmarried sisters living outside the County Donegal village of Ballybeg, during two days at the end of the summer of 1936. Eldest sister Kate (Virginia Simmons), a deeply pious schoolteacher, is the breadwinner and mother-figure to her younger sisters Maggie (Kris Schultz), Agnes (Hannah Broom), Rose (Gilliane Gentzell), and Christina (Marisa Castengera). The quiet Agnes and simple Rose knit and sell gloves to supplement the family income, while Maggie keeps the house and chickens arid Chris tends to her seven-year-old son Michael (invisible in the play and portrayed as an adult, the narrator whose memories form the story, by Thomas Guillebeau). As the Mundy sisters struggle to make ends meet, it's clear that each of them ha* sacrificed personal happiness, loved and lost, for the good of the family. As if the house weren't crowded enough, the sisters are caring for their elder brother Jack (Hue Henry), a priest just returned from a 25-year mission in Uganda with a case of malaria that has eaten away his physical and mental health. Jack struggles to remember his sisters' names and words in English after speaking Swahili for so long and speaks of his life in Africa in the present tense and with an involvement too personal for a proper mis sionary, much to Kate's distress. Equally upset ting is the sudden appearance of Michael's absent father Gerry (Benjamin Ray), a Welsh c: armer with endless money-making schemes ! extremely itchy feet. As Chris swoons to charisma, her sisters fear for Chris' fragile :• art. These events occur against a backdrop of events gathering ominously like thunder clouds: rising turmoil on the Continent, the introduction of industrialism to the country side, the growing divide between well-off and poor, and the clash of Catholicism with the pagan practices still occurring in the back- woods of Ireland. Chris' reunion with Gerry and Rose's childlike infatuation with a local married ne'er-do-well threaten the family from inside, while the march of the 20th century threatens them from without. Friel's play jug gles these mounting crises deftly and subtly, a soft-spoken chronicle of the varying strength of family bonds in the face of despair. Director Leara Rhodes and her cast are equal to the material, taking what could easily be done as strident melodrama and executing it instead as a play of quiet words and mean ingful expressions. The watchwords for this play are "longing" and "regret," and Rhodes' cast pulls it off beautifully. Schultz does an especially pleasing turn as Maggie, moving between wry observation and outbursts of joy as her character tries to keep the family's spirits up, and Castengera delivers a nuanced performance as a woman who badly wants what her erstwhile man is offering but knows him too well. Kudos as well to Simmons, who imbues Kate with the sensitivity Friel slips into her stern character under the radar. The play looks terrific, with the Mundys' cottage rendered in beautiful stonework and cracked plaster and the set dressing, from a cabinet radio that is virtually a character in the play to an authentic turf-burning stove, is just perfect. Anyone who has attended a Town & Gown production knov/s that the tiny stage necessitates some seriously creative set design (belated praise for the Rocky Horror crew for fitting everything on that postage stamp so artfully). In this case, the stage looks huge and evokes the feel of rural Ireland wonderfully. Fair warning: Dancing at Lughnasa is a slow play. It clocks in at two hours 20 minutes with intermission, and it's all dialogue. Don't let that deter you. Friel's words are great words, and Rhodes' cast delivers them so well you won't feel the time passing. In this case, the luck of the Irish goes to everyone who buys a ticket to this terrific drama. John G. Nettles With these words, we begin a new series of columns: less ramblesome than my online ones often are and targeting that elixir which assists in the lubrication of many of our indi vidual cogs: beer. This series will be limited, at present, to once a month—simply because I have other topics to pursue, not to mention that even I, known for my love of good ale, tire of drinking and go on the wagon for days at a time in a vain attempt to reduce the size of my signifi cant girth. Synchronicity is a beautiful thing when it occurs. I had collected enough notes to begin writing this column by Thursday evening, but a few things still needed tweaking. Imagine my surprise when I wandered into Copper Creek for (you guessed it) a pint. There was the new Feb./Mar. edition of Southern Brew News, and emblazoned on the front page was a story about the very subject I was going to write about: microbrews in cans! So, if Elizabeth Wheat (who wrote the Southern Brew column) spies mine here, I hope she won't think me guilty of plagiarism. Microbrews in cans—like beer with flavor: what a concept! Initially Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, CO (they're now in larger quarters in nearby Longmont) came up with canning as a way to allow backpackers and mountain climbers to carry a beer package that wouldn't shatter. Great idea, this! When they began canning their brew pub beers in November, 2002 on a tabletop, hand-operated line that produced one can at a time, little did they know . .»at would blossom forth from this ingenious idea. Canned microbrews have been the rage in British Columbia since sometime in the 1980s. A Canadian com pany, Cask Brewing Systems, perfected small canning lines (for small breweries, natch!) and marketed them to several Vancouver-and-Victoria-area brewpubs. The aluminum trail begins there. Their inspiration may well have been an Anchorage, AK microbrewery, one of the very earliest new brewery evenings in the U.S. that fits into what we could describe as microdom. In their four-year run from 1976 to 1979, Prinz Brau Alaska released five cans and proved that quality beer could be thus pack aged. I managed to taste all these brews from fresh sources, and this idea was a brilliant one; the brews were excellent. Now we return to Oskar Blues. Dale Katechis, the owner, grew up in Alabama. As soon as Georgia boosted the allowable limit on beer to over 6 percent, he began the move to market his products here. This was thus the first beer of its type to arrive, and now cans of Dale's Pale Ale, Old Chub Scotch Ale, Gordon Ale, Mama's Little Yella Pits, Gubna Imperial I.P.A. and Ten Fidy Imperial Stout are all widely sold in Georgia. I've tasted and enjoyed them all. Here's to Dale Katechis and Oskar Blues!! Avery Brewing in Boulder, CO, whose prod ucts have graced our shelves and tap handles for a good while now, has begun selling four of their brews in cans here: they are Avery I.P.A., Ellie's Brown Ale, White Rascal Belgian Style White Ale and Joe's Premium American Pilsner. Thus far, I've only tasted Joe's, which is quite nice. Eventually, I'll find the others so I can have them for my can collection, even if I have to bite the bullet and buy a six-pack. By the way, Avery's been operating since 1993. A newer kid down the block has introduced four canned brews to our state. Butternuts Beer & Ale of Garrattsville, NY (a real, live farmhouse brewery!), is selling Heinnieweisse Weissebier, Porkslap Pale Ale, Snapperhead I.P.A. and Moo Thunder Stout hereabouts. These have not passed my tastebuds as of yet, but the cans are little works of art—even if they are a tad silly. Breckenridge Brewing of Colorado has recently brought us /vaLnche Amber Style Ale and Lucky U I.P.A. in cans. This latter is "a hoppy homage to a Denver landmark, the Tivoli Brewery." Tivoli Beer's nickname was "I lov it," but not enough folks did to keep the place operational! Breckenridge began in 1988 in its same-named city and has now relocated to Denver. I haven't tasted these yet, either. Also recently admitted to our state's list of available brands are the products of the 21st Amendment Brewery of San Trancisco. Their initial shipment was of Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer, Brew Free! or Die I.P.A. and Back in Black Black I.P.A. The com pany's pre-Christmas seasonal, Fireside Chat Winter Spiced Ale, was excellent, but has come and gone: maybe next year they'll remember to silkscreen Fala (F.D.R.'s dog) onto the cans! 21st Amendment (est. 2000) is fix ing to release Monk's Blood Belgian Dark Ale as well as Bitter American Extra Pale Ale, which they tout as their January-to-March seasonal. I've enjoyed the Fireside Chat, the Hell or High Watermelon and the Back in Black; the others have yet to trickle my innards. In warmer months of the year, canned Brooklyn Lager makes its local appearance, as does Brooklyn Summer Lager. Since Saranac Pale Ale is already sold in Georgia and is canned for summer, we might well see that here. If you'd like to have it thus packaged, request it; if enough of us ask, the distributor might well pick some up for us. New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, CO will soon ship us their Fat Tire Amber Ale, Sunshine Wheat Beer and Ranger I.P.A. in cans. The canned versions of these have gone over very well, initially only in Colorado, and last year in several other states. We'll apparently be getting ours in, say, April (as a guess). Lastly in our census of canned microbrews in Georgia come Beil's Oberon Ale and Bell's Hopslam Ale in 5 liter (1.32 gallon) cans. The brewery also offers their Best Brown Ale, Winter White Ale and Two Hearted Ale in this package (Georgia may or may not have these yet)... ask for 'em by name, folks! Next B^er Notes, I'll tell you about why tiny Kellyton, AL 35089 is such a beer destina tion (you flat won't believe the story!)... and maybe I will have made a roadtrip worth a pic ture and another thousand words. Prosit! (30.) William Orten Carlton = ORT. 10 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 16,2011
