Dramaturgical Packet.
Brian Friel: A bit about the author
Irish playwright Brian Friel was born in Omagh, County Tyrone on January 9th 1929. Growing up, he lived in Derry with his father and attended the school where his father had a teaching position. He attended the National Seminary, St. Patrick’s College in Dublin, where he studied to be a Catholic priest. He chose not to join the priesthood, and instead took a post-graduate teaching course and began teaching and writing in Derry. Initial success with his short stories led to Friel’s radio plays and then stage plays. In 1969 he moved with his family to a small town in Donegal. A very shy man, he is married to Anne Morrison with whom he has five children. Today at age 85, Brian Friel likes to fish and read, and continues to write to this day. (Keen).
Friel's first play, Philadelphia, Here I Come, also introduced the town of "Ballybeg," a fictional Donegal town in many of Friel's works, based on Glenties, a town in County Donegal near Derry and Tyrone. Friel’s writing is influenced heavily by his own life growing up. He writes often of small towns and families who live in these towns which are economically behind the rest of Ireland. For instance, Donegal frequents many of Friel’s plays, because Friel’s grandparents were illiterate peasants who lived in County Donegal. Friel moved to Donegal himself in 1969, because he felt he had strong roots there. Like Dancing at Lughnasa, many of his plays take place in Ballybeg, “ ‘a remote part of Donegal’ and, as Seamus Deane notes, it resides in ‘that borderland of Derry, Donegal, and Tyrone in which a largely Catholic community leads a reduced existence under the pressure of political and economic oppression’ ” (Keen).
The themes in Friel’s plays are often based on truth, identity, and communication through language. He explores identity through memory, often putting several communal memories in one individual, such as Michael in Dancing at Lughnasa. “The different associative and emotive memories and experiences of individuals and communities allow for different perspectives and perceptions of reality to exist.” (Keen)
He'll Never Stop Being Great!
Friel's first big theatrical success came in 1964 when he wrote Philadelpia, Here I Come!, a hit in Dublin, London, and New York. Other major plays include, Lovers (1967), The Faith Healer (1979), Fathers and Sons (1987), Making History (1988), and Molly Sweeney (1994). In 1980, Friel and actor Stephen Rea established the Field Day Theatre Company in Northern Ireland; their first production was Friel’s classic work, Translations (1980), which won the Ewart-Biggs Peace Prize. In 1982, Friel was elected as a member of Aosdana, the national honorary society of Irish artists, and in 2006 he was elected to its highest honor as a Saoi. His many awards include an appointment to the Irish Senate (1987-89), membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the British Royal Society of Literature, and the Irish Academy of Letters. Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), his most influential and successful play, won major awards in London and New York, including the Tony Award for Best Play.