Four of the Mundy sisters (Jodi Rankin, left, Holli Henderson, Elizabeth D. Leadon and Molly Holleran) share a joyous dance.

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Ah, the Irish.

They can be poor, bullied by an oppressive religion and steeped in political fights.

But they can write poetry. And they can laugh. And dance.

Proof: Brian Friel's "Dancing at Lughnasa," the story of the five single, impoverished Mundy sisters, one illegitimate son, a wayward lover, and a priest who has lost his way to the Catholic Church's door. The memory play is told through that son, a grown-up Michael, recalling the August in 1936 when he was 7 years old and lived with his aunts and uncle, the priest, in a small town in Western Ireland.

Live Theatre Workshop opened a warm, sometimes thrilling, always compelling production of the play on Saturday.

Friel may be Ireland's greatest living playwright. His images are electric, his words free and flowing. Get a load of this snippet, spoken by Michael as he remembers that sweet, happy August:

"In that memory, atmosphere is more real than incident, and everything is simultaneously actual and illusory. In that memory, too, the air is nostalgic with the music of the thirties."

The man can write.

You long for actors who worship words to breathe in Friel's lines, and many of them in this LTW production did.

Especially Holli Henderson, who gave the wise-cracking, fun-loving Maggie gleeful life while hanging on oh-so-reluctantly to the sorrow that seems to lace the Mundy sisters' daily doings.

And when she finishes a moving monologue about a high school friend, she breaks into a raucous, joyous dance, eventually pulling all her sisters on their feet with her. It's a moment of boundless, uninhibited joy that picks up the audience and takes them along. Henderson led that interlude with stomping, shouting and scads of honesty.

This ensemble piece, directed by Sabian Trout with a clear love of the material and an understanding of the women, is so full of rich characters and solid acting that Henderson did not have to carry the play — though surely she could have.

Cliff Madison's Michael had a tough job narrating the story as an adult who sometimes has to adopt the aura of a 7-year-old. He did it without ever making us feel he was "playing" young, and he gave the story heart and filled it with an adoration for the women who raised him.

Keith Wick's Father Jack, who had spent 25 years tending to the residents of an African leper colony, came across as natural and real. Father Jack's loss of faith — he found the pagan rituals in Africa far more meaningful than those of the Catholic Church — is why he was sent home to his sisters. Wick gave Jack a gentility and an earnestness between bouts of struggling to remember his English words after so many years of speaking Swahili.

Rounding out the cast were Jodi Rankin as the simple-minded Rose; Molly Holleran as Michael's mother, Christina; Elizabeth D. Leadon as the home-body, Agnes; and Kristi Loera as Kate, the eldest of the sisters, a strident Catholic and a no-nonsense woman.

Eric Anson's young lover, Gerry, who comes back to momentarily see Christina and his son, Michael, doesn't have the acting chops the rest of the cast did, but he has a charm that works, nonetheless.

"Dancing" gently rocks your memory long after it's over. Thank Friel for that, and this heartbreaking, and heartwarming production.

"Dancing at Lughnasa"

• Presented by: Live Theatre Workshop.

• Playwright: Brian Friel.

• Director: Sabian Trout.

• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays through March 30.

• Where: Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway.

• Tickets: $17, with discounts available.

• Information: 327-4242.