The drama is framed by the narration of Michael Mundy, who looks back on his childhood year of 1936 and confides to us his recollections of life with his mother, her four sisters, his sporadically present father and his uncle Jack. Ciarán O’Reilly, perfectly cast as Michael, sets the right tone for the reminiscence, and before the play is over fills us in on what happened later to the various characters. The story, although akin to the familiar theme of people trapped in the limitations of their opportunities and struggling to survive emotionally as well as practically, comes through with specificity that brings freshness and individuality through Friel’s sensitive, perceptive writing and the quality of the acting.

Annabel Hägg gives a poignant performance as the attractive Chris, Michael’s mother, who had him out of wedlock with Gerry (Kevin Collins), a free-wheeling sort who seeks adventure rather than domesticity and despite his promises of settling down with Chris, goes off yet another time, on this occasion to fight with the Loyalists against Franco in Spain. There is a scene in which Chris’s look of jealousy as Gerry dances with her sister Agnes, nicely played by Rachel Pickup, expresses a lifetime of frustration.

Jo Kinsella is effervescent as Maggie, the most cheerful of the sisters, who expresses a zest for life amid the doldrums. Aedín Moloney is like a wounded bird as the fragile Rose, yet achieves the right combination of needing looking after and assertiveness in the face of her dominating, protective sisters. The household is dominated by Orlagh Cassidy as Kate, a stern, religious woman who is repelled by any suggestion of sexuality and insists on what she considers proper behavior, yet one can envision her as a cauldron of self-repression, especially when she breaks into dance with the others who, quite a sight, unleash their spirit with an outburst of gusto in a defining dancing scene, choreographed by Barry McNabb.

The ensemble of actresses portraying the sisters, as directed by Moore, registers futility, inducing us to realize the limitations on their lives by their environment, the restrictions on women at the time and the pressing the economic difficulties that they face.

Michael Countryman makes the most of his role as their brother Jack, a priest and missionary who has returned from serving a leper colony in Uganda. His health has been broken, and he regales his sisters with stories of the past and plans for the future that will never materialize. He has vowed to start saying mass again, but we know it is all talk.

In her direction Moore injects much life into the depictions, all the more telling in contrast to the obstacles faced. But she also knows how to command attention in less flamboyant ways that provide unity and perspective, as when at the outset the characters are assembled before us as if in a family portrait, and likewise, a similar effect is achieved at the end.