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Brian Patrick Friel (c. 9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015) was an Irish dramatist, short story writer and founder of the
Field Day Theatre Company The Field Day Theatre Company began as an artistic collaboration between playwright Brian Friel and actor Stephen Rea. In 1980, the duo set out to launch a production of Friel's recently completed play, '' Translations''. They decided to rehearse ...
. He had been considered one of the greatest living English-language dramatists. (subscription required). He has been likened to an "Irish
Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His caree ...
" and described as "the universally accented voice of Ireland". His plays have been compared favourably to those of contemporaries such as Samuel Beckett,
Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are ''All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' (194 ...
, Harold Pinter and
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
. Recognised for early works such as ''
Philadelphia, Here I Come! ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' is a 1964 play by Irish dramatist Brian Friel. Set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, County Donegal, the play launched Friel onto the international stage. Plot ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' centres around Gareth ...
'' and '' Faith Healer'', Friel had 24 plays published in a career of more than a half-century. He was elected to the honorary position of
Saoi Saoi (, plural ''Saoithe''; literally "wise one"; historically the title of the head of a bardic school) is the highest honour bestowed by Aosdána, a state-supported association of Irish creative artists. The title is awarded, for life, to an exis ...
of
Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association of artists. It was created in 1981 on the initiative of a group of writers with support from the country's Arts Council. Membership, which is by invitation from current member ...
. His plays were commonly produced on Broadway in New York City throughout this time, as well as in Ireland and the UK. In 1980 Friel co-founded
Field Day Theatre Company The Field Day Theatre Company began as an artistic collaboration between playwright Brian Friel and actor Stephen Rea. In 1980, the duo set out to launch a production of Friel's recently completed play, '' Translations''. They decided to rehearse ...
and his play '' Translations'' was the company's first production. With Field Day, Friel collaborated with Seamus Heaney, 1995 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Heaney and Friel first became friends after Friel sent the young poet a letter following publication of his book ''Death of a Naturalist''. Friel was a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
, the British Royal Society of Literature and the Irish Academy of Letters. He was appointed to Seanad Éireann in 1987 and served until 1989. In later years, ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' reinvigorated Friel's oeuvre, bringing him Tony Awards (including Best Play), the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. It was also adapted into a film, starring Meryl Streep, directed by Pat O'Connor, script by Frank McGuinness.


Personal life

Friel was born in 1929 at
Knockmoyle Knockmoyle ( ; ) is a hamlet and townland approximately 8 kilometres northwest of Omagh in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. In the 2001 census the Knockmoyle area had 141 households and a population of 329. It has a post office, church (est. 18 ...
, before the family moved to Killyclogher close to Omagh, County Tyrone His exact birth date and name are ambiguous. The parish register lists a birth name of Brian Patrick Ó'Friel and a birth date of 9 January. Elsewhere his birth name is given as Bernard Patrick Friel (reportedly on the grounds that "Brian" was not recognised by the registrar as an acceptable forename), and he had a second birth certificate which gave his birth date as 10 January. In life he was known simply as Brian Friel and celebrated his birthday on 9 January. His father was Patrick Friel, a primary school teacher and later a councillor on Londonderry Corporation, the local city council in
Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...
. Friel's mother was Mary (née McLoone), postmistress of
Glenties Glenties () is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. It is situated where two glens meet, north-west of the Bluestack Mountains, near the confluence of two rivers. Glenties is the largest centre of population in the parish of Iniskeel. Glenties ha ...
, County Donegal. The family moved to
Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...
when Friel was ten years old. There he attended
St Columb's College St Columb's College ( ga, Coláiste Naomh Colum Cille) is a Roman Catholic boys' grammar school in Derry, Northern Ireland and, since 2008, a specialist school in mathematics. It is named after Saint Columba, the missionary monk from Count ...
(the same school attended by Seamus Heaney,
John Hume John Hume (18 January 19373 August 2020) was an Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the recent political history of Ireland, as one of the architects of the Northern Irel ...
, Seamus Deane,
Phil Coulter Philip Coulter (born 19 February 1942) is an Irish musician, songwriter and record producer from Derry, Northern Ireland. He was awarded the Gold Badge from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in October 2009. Coulter ha ...
,
Eamonn McCann Eamonn McCann (born 10 March 1943) is an Irish politician, journalist, political activist, and former councillor from Derry, Northern Ireland. McCann was a People Before Profit (PBP) Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Foyle from 201 ...
and
Paul Brady Paul Joseph Brady (born 19 May 1947) is an Irish singer-songwriter and musician from Strabane, Northern Ireland. His work straddles folk and pop. He was interested in a wide variety of music from an early age. Initially popular for playing ...
). Friel received his B.A. from
St Patrick's College, Maynooth St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth ( ga, Coláiste Naoimh Phádraig, Maigh Nuad), is the "National Seminary for Ireland" (a Roman Catholic college), and a pontifical university, located in the town of Maynooth, from Dublin, Ireland ...
(1945–48), and qualified as a teacher at St. Joseph's Training College, Belfast in
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
, 1949–50. He married Anne Morrison in 1954, with whom he had four daughters and one son. Between 1950 and 1960, he worked as a Maths teacher in the Derry primary and intermediate school system, taking leave in 1960 to pursue a career as writer, living off his savings. In the late 1960s, the Friels moved from Derry to Muff, County Donegal, before settling outside Greencastle, County Donegal. Friel supported Irish nationalism and was a member of the Nationalist Party. After a long illness Friel died on 2 October 2015 in
Greencastle, County Donegal Greencastle () is a commercial fishing port located in the north-east of the Inishowen Peninsula on the north coast of County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland. The port is on the western shores of Lough Foyle. Nowadays, given the decline in the f ...
and is buried in the cemetery in
Glenties Glenties () is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. It is situated where two glens meet, north-west of the Bluestack Mountains, near the confluence of two rivers. Glenties is the largest centre of population in the parish of Iniskeel. Glenties ha ...
, Co. Donegal. He was survived by his wife Anne and children Mary, Judy, Sally and David. Another daughter, Patricia, predeceased him.


Career

A common setting for Friel's plays is in or around the fictional town of " Ballybeg" (from the Irish ''Baile Beag'', meaning "Small Town"). There are fourteen such plays: ''
Philadelphia, Here I Come! ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' is a 1964 play by Irish dramatist Brian Friel. Set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, County Donegal, the play launched Friel onto the international stage. Plot ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' centres around Gareth ...
'', '' Crystal and Fox'', '' The Gentle Island'', '' Living Quarters'', '' Faith Healer'', ''
Aristocrats Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...
'', '' Translations'', '' The Communication Cord'', ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'', '' Wonderful Tennessee'', ''
Molly Sweeney ''Molly Sweeney'' is a two-act play by Brian Friel. It tells the story of its title character, Molly, a woman blind since infancy, who undergoes an operation to try to restore her sight. Like Friel's '' Faith Healer'', the play tells Molly's sto ...
'', '' Give Me Your Answer Do!'' and ''
The Home Place ''The Home Place'' is a play written by Brian Friel that first premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin on 1 February 2005. After a sold-out season at the Gate, it transferred to the Comedy Theatre (now Harold Pinter Theatre), in London's West E ...
'', while the seminal event of '' Faith Healer'' takes place in the town. These plays present an extended history of this imagined community, with ''Translations'' and ''The Home Place'' set in the nineteenth century, and ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' in the 1930s. With the other plays set in "the present" but written throughout the playwright's career from the early 1960s through the late 1990s, the audience is presented with the evolution of rural Irish society, from the isolated and backward town that Gar flees in the 1964 ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' to the prosperous and multicultural small city of ''Molly Sweeney'' (1994) and ''Give Me Your Answer Do!'' (1997), where the characters have health clubs, ethnic restaurants, and regular flights to the world's major cities.


1959 – 1975

Friel's first radio plays were produced by Ronald Mason for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
Northern Ireland Home Service in 1958: A Sort of Freedom (16 January 1958) and To This Hard House (24 April 1958).Dantanus, Ulf, ''Brian Friel: A Study.'' Faber & Faber, 1989.Pine, Richard, ''The Diviner: The Art of Brian Friel.'' University College Dublin Press, 1999. Friel began writing short stories for '' The New Yorker'' in 1959 and subsequently published two well-received collections: ''The Saucer of Larks'' (1962) and ''The Gold in the Sea'' (1966). These were followed by '' A Doubtful Paradise,'' his first stage play, produced by the Ulster Group Theatre in late August 1960. Friel also wrote 59 articles for ''
The Irish Press ''The Irish Press'' (Irish: ''Scéala Éireann'') was an Irish national daily newspaper published by Irish Press plc between 5 September 1931 and 25 May 1995. Foundation The paper's first issue was published on the eve of the 1931 All-Ireland ...
,'' a Dublin-based party-political newspaper, from April 1962 to August 1963; this series included short stories, political editorials on life in Northern Ireland and Donegal, his travels to Dublin and New York City, and his childhood memories of Derry, Omagh, Belfast, and Donegal. Early in Friel's career, the Irish journalist Sean Ward even referred to him in an ''Irish Press'' article as one of the Abbey Theatre's "rejects". Friel's play, '' The Enemy Within'' (1962) enjoyed success, despite only being on Abbey stage for 9 performances. Belfast's Lyric Theatre revived it in September 1963 and the BBC Northern Ireland Home Service and Radio Éireann both aired it in 1963. Although Friel later withdrew '' The Blind Mice'' (1963), it was by far his most successful play of his very early period, playing for 6 weeks at Dublin's Eblana Theatre, revived by the Lyric, and broadcast by Radio Éireann and the BBC Home Service almost ten times by 1967. Friel had a short stint as "observer" at Tyrone Guthrie's theater in early-1960s Minneapolis; he remarked on it as "enabling" in that it gave him "courage and daring to attempt things". Shortly after returning from his time at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, Friel wrote '' Philadelphia Here I Come!'' (1964). The play made him instantly famous in Dublin, London, and New York. ''The Loves of Cass McGuire'' (1966), and '' Lovers'' (1967) were both successful in Ireland, with ''Lovers'' also popular in The United States. Despite Friel's successes in playwriting'','' Friel in the period saw himself as primarily a short story writer, in a 1965 interview stating, "I don't concentrate on the theatre at all. I live on short stories." Friel then turned his attention to the politics of the day, releasing ''The Mundy Scheme'' (1969) and ''Volunteers'' (1975), both pointed, the first bitter, satires on Ireland's government. The latter stages an archaeological excavation on the day before the site is turned over to a hotel developer, and uses Dublin's Wood Quay controversy as its contemporary point of reference. In that play, the Volunteers are IRA prisoners who have been indefinitely interned by the Dublin government, and the term ''Volunteer'' is both ironic, in that as prisoners they have no free will, and political, in that the IRA used the term to refer to its members. Using the site as a physical metaphor for the nation's history, the play's action examines how Irish history has been commodified, sanitized, and oversimplified to fit the political needs of society.McGrath, F. C. 1999. Brian Friel’s (Post) Colonial Drama  : Language, Illusion, and Politics. Irish Studies. Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, (1999). 99. In 1968 Friel was living in Derry City, a hotbed of the Irish Civil Rights Movement, where incidents such as the
Battle of the Bogside The Battle of the Bogside was a large three-day riot that took place from 12 to 14 August 1969 in Derry, Northern Ireland. Thousands of Catholic/Irish nationalist residents of the Bogside district, organised under the Derry Citizens' Defence ...
inspired Friel's choice to write a new play set in Derry. The play Friel began drafting in Derry would become, '' The Freedom of the City.'' Friel, defying a British government ban, marched with the Civil Rights Association against the policy of internment. The protest Friel took part in was the infamous
Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday may refer to: Historical events Canada * Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia * Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
protests of 1972. In a 1983 interview, Friel spoke of how his personal experience of being fired upon by British soldiers during the
Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday may refer to: Historical events Canada * Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia * Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
riot, greatly affected the drafting of ''The Freedom of the City'' as a political play. Friel in speaking of the incident, recalled, "It was really a shattering experience that the British army, this disciplined instrument, would go in as they did that time and shoot thirteen people...to have to throw yourself on the ground because people are firing at you is really a terrifying experience."


1976 – 1989

By the mid 1970s, Friel had moved away from overtly political plays to examine family dynamics in a manner that has attracted many comparisons to the work of Chekhov.Andrews, Elmer, ''The Art of Brian Friel.'' St. Martin's, 1995. '' Living Quarters'' (1977), a play that examines the suicide of a domineering father, is a retelling of the Theseus/Hippolytus myth in a contemporary Irish setting. This play, with its focus on several sisters and their ne'er-do-well brother, serves as a type of preparation for Friel's more successful ''
Aristocrats Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...
'' (1979), a Chekhovian study of a once-influential family's financial collapse and, perhaps, social liberation from the aristocratic myths that have constrained the children. ''Aristocrats'' was the first of three plays premiered over a period of eighteen months which would come to define Friel's career as a dramatist, the others being '' Faith Healer'' (1979) and '' Translations'' (1980). ''Faith Healer'' is a series of four conflicting monologues delivered by dead and living characters who struggle to understand the life and death of Frank Hardy, the play's itinerant healer who can neither understand nor command his unreliable powers, and the lives sacrificed to his destructive charismatic life. Many of Friel's earlier plays had incorporated assertively avant garde techniques: splitting the main character Gar into two actors in ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'', portraying dead characters in "Winners" of ''Lovers,'' ''Freedom'', and ''Living Quarters'', a Brechtian structural alienation and choric figures in ''Freedom of the City'', metacharacters existing in a collective unconscious Limbo in ''Living Quarters''. These experiments came to fruition in ''Faith Healer''. Later in Friel's career, such experimental aspects became buried beneath the surface of more seemingly realist plays like '' Translations'' (1980) and ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' (1990); however, avant-garde techniques remain a fundamental aspect of Friel's work into his late career. ''Translations'' was premiered in 1980 at Guildhall, Derry by the Field Day Theatre Company, with Stephen Rea, Liam Neeson, and Ray MacAnally. Set in 1833, it is a play about language, the meeting of English and Irish cultures, the looming Great Famine, the coming of a free national school system that will eliminate the traditional hedge schools, the English expedition to convert all Irish place names into English, and the crossed love between an Irish woman who speaks no English and an English soldier who speaks no Irish. It was an instant success. The innovative conceit of the play is to stage two language communities (the Gaelic and the English), which have few and very limited ways to speak to each other, for the English know no Irish, while only a few of the Irish know English. ''Translations'' went on to be one of the most translated and staged of all plays in the latter 20th century, performed in Estonia, Iceland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, along with most of the world's English-speaking countries (including South Africa, Canada, the U.S. and Australia). It won the
Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize was created in 1977, in memory of Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British Ambassador to Ireland, who was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1976. Founded by his Widow Jane Ewart-Biggs (fo ...
for 1985. Neil Jordan completed a screenplay for a film version of ''Translations'' that was never produced. Friel commented on ''Translations'': "The play has to do with language and only language. And if it becomes overwhelmed by that political element, it is lost." Despite growing fame and success, the 1980s is considered Friel's artistic "Gap" as he published so few original works for the stage: ''Translations'' in 1980, '' The Communication Cord'' in 1982, and '' Making History'' in 1988. Privately, Friel complained both of the work required managing Field Day (granting written and live interviews, casting, arranging tours, etc.) and of his fear that he was "trying to impose a 'Field Day' political atmosphere" on his work. However, this is also a period during which he worked on several minor projects that fill out the decade: a translation of Chekhov's '' Three Sisters'' (1981), an adaptation of Turgenev's novel '' Fathers and Sons'' (1987), an edition of Charles McGlinchey's memoirs entitled '' The Last of the Name'' for Blackstaff Press (1986), and Charles Macklin's play '' The London Vertigo'' in 1990. Friel's decision to premiere ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' at the Abbey Theatre rather than as a Field Day production initiated his evolution away from involvement with Field Day, and he formally resigned as a director in 1994.


1990 – 2005

Friel returned to a position of Irish theatrical dominance during the 1990s, particularly with the release of ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' at the turn of the decade. Partly modelled on '' The Glass Menagerie'' by
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
, it is set in the late summer of 1936 and loosely based on the lives of Friel's mother and aunts who lived in Glenties, on the west coast of Donegal. Probably Friel's most successful play, it premiered at the
Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the p ...
, transferred to London's West End, and went on to Broadway. On Broadway it won three Tony Awards in 1992, including Best Play. A film version, starring Meryl Streep, soon followed. Friel had been thinking about writing a " Lough Derg" play for several years, and his '' Wonderful Tennessee'' (less of a critical success after its premiere in 1993 when compared to other plays from this time) portrays three couples in their failed attempt to return to a pilgrimage sit to a small island off the Ballybeg coast, though they intend to return not to revive the religious rite but to celebrate the birthday of one of their members with alcohol and culinary delicacies. '' Give Me Your Answer Do!'' premiered in 1997 and recounts the lives and careers of two novelists and friends who pursued different paths; one writing shallow, popular works, the other writing works that refuse to conform to popular tastes. After an American university pays a small fortune for the popular writer's papers, the same collector arrives to review the manuscripts of his friend. The collector prepares to announce his findings at a dinner party when the existence of two "hard-core" pornographic novels based upon the writer's daughter forces all present to reassess. Entering his eighth decade, Friel found it difficult to maintain the writing pace that he returned to in the 1990s; indeed, between 1997 and 2003 he produced only the very short one-act plays "The Bear" (2002), "The Yalta Game" (2001), and "Afterplay" (2002), all published under the title '' Three Plays After'' (2002). The latter two plays stage Friel's continued fascination with Chekhov's work. "The Yalta Game" is concerned with Chekhov's story "The Lady with the Lapdog," "Afterplay" is an imagining of a near-romantic meeting between Andrey Prozorov of Chekhov's '' Three Sisters'' and Sonya Serebriakova of his ''
Uncle Vanya ''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direc ...
''. It has been revived several times (including being part of the Friel/Gate Festival in September 2009) and had its world premiere at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. The most innovative work of Friel's late period is '' Performances'' (2003). A graduate researching the impact of
Leoš Janáček Leoš Janáček (, baptised Leo Eugen Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic musics, including Eastern European fo ...
's platonic love for Kamila Stosslova on his work playfully and passionately argues with the composer, who appears to host her at his artistic retreat more than 70 years after his death; all the while, the Alba String Quartet's players intrude on the dialogue, warm up, then perform the first two movements of Janáček's Second String Quartet in a tableau that ends the play. ''
The Home Place ''The Home Place'' is a play written by Brian Friel that first premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin on 1 February 2005. After a sold-out season at the Gate, it transferred to the Comedy Theatre (now Harold Pinter Theatre), in London's West E ...
'' (2005), focusing on the aging Christopher Gore and the last of Friel's plays set in Ballybeg, was also his final full-scale work. Although Friel had written plays about the Catholic gentry, this is his first play directly considering the Protestant experience. In this work, he considers the first hints of the waning of Ascendancy authority during the summer of 1878, the year before Charles Stuart Parnell became president of the Land League and initiated the Land Wars. After a sold-out season at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, it transferred to London's West End on 25 May 2005, making its American premiere at the
Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Gut ...
in September 2007.


List of works

* '' A Sort of Freedom'' (unpublished radio play, 1958) * '' To This Hard House'' (unpublished radio play, 1958) * '' A Doubtful Paradise'' (unpublished, 1960) * '' The Enemy Within'' (1962) * '' The Blind Mice'' (unpublished, 1963) * ''
Philadelphia, Here I Come! ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' is a 1964 play by Irish dramatist Brian Friel. Set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, County Donegal, the play launched Friel onto the international stage. Plot ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'' centres around Gareth ...
'' (1964) * '' The Founder Members'' (unpublished TV play, 1964) * '' Three Fathers, Three Sons'' (unpublished TV play, 1964) * '' The Loves of Cass McGuire'' (1966) * '' Lovers: Winners and Losers'' (1967) * '' Crystal and Fox'' (1968) * '' The Mundy Scheme'' (1969) * ''Winners'' (1970) * '' The Gentle Island'' (1971) * '' The Freedom of the City'' (1973) * ''
Volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
'' (1975) * '' Farewell to Ardstraw'' (unpublished BBC TV play, 1976) * '' The Next Parish'' (unpublished BBC TV play, 1976) * '' Living Quarters'' (1977) * '' Faith Healer'' (1979) * ''
Aristocrats Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...
'' (1979) * '' Translations'' (1980) * '' Three Sisters'' (
Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
translation, 1981) * '' American Welcome'' (7-minute one-act play, 1981) * '' The Communication Cord'' (1982) * '' Fathers and Sons'' ( Ivan Turgenev adaptation, 1987) * '' Making History'' (1988) * ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' (1990) * '' The London Vertigo'' (Charles Macklin adaptation, 1991) * '' A Month in the Country'' (Turgenev adaptation, 1992) * '' Wonderful Tennessee'' (1993) * ''
Molly Sweeney ''Molly Sweeney'' is a two-act play by Brian Friel. It tells the story of its title character, Molly, a woman blind since infancy, who undergoes an operation to try to restore her sight. Like Friel's '' Faith Healer'', the play tells Molly's sto ...
'' (1994) * '' Give Me Your Answer, Do!'' (1997) * ''
Uncle Vanya ''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direc ...
'' (Chekhov adaptation, 1998) * '' The Yalta Game'' (one-act Chekhov adaptation, 2001) * ''The Bear'' (one-act Chekhov adaptation, 2002) * '' Afterplay'' (one-act play, 2002) * ''Performances'' (70-minute one-act play, 2003) * ''
The Home Place ''The Home Place'' is a play written by Brian Friel that first premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin on 1 February 2005. After a sold-out season at the Gate, it transferred to the Comedy Theatre (now Harold Pinter Theatre), in London's West E ...
'' (2005) * ''
Hedda Gabler ''Hedda Gabler'' () is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage. The play has been can ...
'' ( Henrik Ibsen adaptation, 2008)


Reviews

* Fionnlagh, Uilleam, (1983), ''Celtic
Omphalos An omphalos is a religious stone artifact, or baetylus. In Ancient Greek, the word () means "navel". Among the Ancient Greeks, it was a widespread belief that Delphi was the center of the world. According to the myths regarding the founding of ...
'', a review of ''Translations'', in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), ''
Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' No. 12, Spring 1983, pp 43 & 44, * Ritchie, Harry (1984), ''Recollecting Friel'', a review of ''The Diviner'', in Parker, Geoff (ed.), ''
Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' No. 17, Summer 1984, p. 50,


Major prizes and honours

Taoiseach
Charles Haughey Charles James Haughey (; 16 September 1925 – 13 June 2006) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach on three occasions – 1979 to 1981, March to December 1982 and 1987 to 1992. He was also Minister for the Gaeltacht fro ...
nominated Friel to serve as a member of Seanad Éireann (the Irish Senate) in 1987, where he served until 1989. In 1989,
BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...
launched a "Brian Friel Season", a six-play series devoted to his work; he was the first living playwright to receive such an honour. In 1999 (April–August), Friel's 70th birthday was celebrated in Dublin with the Friel Festival, during which ten of his plays were staged or presented as dramatic readings throughout Dublin. A conference, National Library exhibition, film screenings, pre-show talks, and the launching of a special issue of ''The Irish University Review'' devoted to the playwright ran in conjunction with the festival. In 1999, ''
The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'' extended him the honour of a lifetime achievement award. On 22 February 2006, President Mary McAleese presented Friel with a gold
torc A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large rigid or stiff neck ring in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some had hook and ring closures and a few had ...
in recognition of his election to the position of
Saoi Saoi (, plural ''Saoithe''; literally "wise one"; historically the title of the head of a bardic school) is the highest honour bestowed by Aosdána, a state-supported association of Irish creative artists. The title is awarded, for life, to an exis ...
by his fellow members of
Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association of artists. It was created in 1981 on the initiative of a group of writers with support from the country's Arts Council. Membership, which is by invitation from current member ...
. On acceptance of the gold Torc, Friel quipped: "I knew that being made a Saoi, really getting this award, is extreme unction; it is a final anointment—Aosdana's last rites." Only five members of Aosdána could hold this honour at the time, and Friel joined fellow Saoithe
Louis le Brocquy __NOTOC__ Louis le Brocquy ''HRHA'' (; 10 November 1916 – 25 April 2012) was an Irish painter born in Dublin to Albert and Sybil le Brocquy. His work received many accolades in a career that spanned some seventy years of creative practice ...
,
Benedict Kiely Benedict "Ben" Kiely (15 August 1919 – 9 February 2007) was an Irish writer and broadcaster from Omagh, County Tyrone. Early life Kiely was born near Dromore, County Tyrone and was a student at the Christian Brothers School in Omagh. In 1 ...
, Seamus Heaney and
Anthony Cronin Anthony Gerard Richard Cronin (28 December 1923 – 27 December 2016) was an Irish poet, arts activist, biographer, commentator, critic, editor and barrister. Early life and family Cronin was born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford on 28 December ...
. In August 2006, Heaney (also a friend of the Friels) who had been in attendance at the 75th birthday of Friel's wife in County Donegal, suffered a stroke on the morning after the celebration. In November 2008, The Queen's University of Belfast announced its intention to build a new theatre complex and research centre, to be named The Brian Friel Theatre and Centre for Theatre Research. Friel attended its opening in 2009. Friel's 80th birthday fell in 2009. The journal ''Irish Theatre International'' published a Special Issue to commemorate the occasion with seven articles devoted to the playwright. The Gate Theatre staged three plays (''Faith Healer,'' ''The Yalta Game,'' and ''Afterplay'') during several weeks in September. In the midst of the Gate's productions, the Abbey Theatre presented "A Birthday Celebration for Brian Friel," on 13 September 2009. Although not inclined to seek publicity, Friel attended the performance amid regular seating, received a cake while the audience sang "Happy Birthday," and mingled with well wishers afterwards. The Abbey event was an evening of staged readings (excerpts from ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!'', ''Translations,'' and ''Dancing at Lughnasa''), the performance of Friel-specific songs and nocturnes, and readings by Thomas Kilroy and Seamus Heaney. ;List * 1988 Evening Standard Award for Best Play – ''
Aristocrats Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...
'' * 1989 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play – ''
Aristocrats Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...
'' * 1991 Laurence Olivier award for Best Play – ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' * 1992 New York Drama Critics Circle award for best play– ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' * 1992 Tony awards, including Best Play – ''
Dancing at Lughnasa ''Dancing at Lughnasa'' is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Ev ...
'' * 1995 New York Drama Critics Circle award for best foreign play – ''
Molly Sweeney ''Molly Sweeney'' is a two-act play by Brian Friel. It tells the story of its title character, Molly, a woman blind since infancy, who undergoes an operation to try to restore her sight. Like Friel's '' Faith Healer'', the play tells Molly's sto ...
'' * 2006 Induction into the
American Theater Hall of Fame The American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City was founded in 1972. Earl Blackwell was the first head of the organization's Executive Committee. In an announcement in 1972, he said that the new ''Theater Hall of Fame'' would be located in the ...
* 2010 Donegal Person of the Year *Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
*Member of the British Royal Society of Literature *Member of the Irish Academy of Letters *Visiting Writer at
Magee College The Ulster University Magee campus is one of the four campuses of Ulster University. It is located in Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland and opened in 1865 as a Presbyterian Christian arts and Seminary, theological college. Since 1953, i ...
(1970–71 academic year) *Honorary doctorate from Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois (1974)


Legacy

The
National Library of Ireland The National Library of Ireland (NLI; ga, Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is the Republic of Ireland's national library located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The mission of the National Library of Ireland i ...
houses the 160 boxes of The Brian Friel papers, containing notebooks, manuscripts, playbills, correspondence, contracts, unpublished manuscripts, programmes, production photos, articles, uncollected essays, and a vast collection of ephemera relating to Friel's career and creative process from 1959 through 2000. It does not contain his ''Irish Press'' articles, which can be found in the Dublin and Belfast newspaper libraries. In 2011, an additional set of Friel's papers were made available in the National Library of Ireland. These additional papers consist mainly of archival materials dating between 2000 and 2010.


See also

*
List of Irish writers This is a list of writers either born in Ireland or holding Irish citizenship, who have a Wikipedia page. Writers whose work is in Irish are included. Dramatists A–D *John Banim (1798–1842) *Ivy Bannister (born 1951) *Sebastian Barry (born ...


Further reading

* ''Brian Friel: Essays, Diaries, Interviews, 1964–1999'' (ed. Christopher Murray). Faber & Faber, 1999. * Andrews, Elmer, ''The Art of Brian Friel''. St. Martin's, 1995. * Bertha, C., Kurdi, M., Morse, D.E., ''"The Work has Value": The Dramatic Artistry of Brian Friel''. Carysfort Press, 2006. * Boltwood, Scott, ''Brian Friel, Ireland, and The North''. Cambridge University Press, 2007. * Corbett, Tony, ''Brian Friel: Decoding the Language of the Tribe''. The Liffey Press, 2002. * Dantanus, Ulf, ''Brian Friel: A Study''. Faber & Faber, 1989. * * Friel, Brian, ''Selected Plays of Brian Friel''. The
Catholic University of America Press The Catholic University of America Press, also known as CUA Press, is the publishing division of The Catholic University of America. Founded on November 14, 1939, and incorporated on July 16, 1941,Roy J. Deferrari ''Memoirs of the Catholic Univer ...
, 1986. * * Maxwell, D.E.S., ''Brian Friel''. Bucknell University Press, 1973. * McGrath, F.C., ''Brian Friel's (Post)Colonial Drama''. Syracuse University Press, 1999. * McMinn, Joe, ''Cultural Politics and the Ulster Crisis'', in Parker, Geoff (ed.), ''
Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' No. 23, Summer 1986, pp. 35 - 39, * O'Brien, George, ''Brian Friel''. Gill & Macmillan, 1989.
O'Malley, Aidan, ''Field Day and the Translation of Irish Identities: Performing Contradictions''. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
* Pelletier, Martine, ''Le théâtre de Brian Friel: Histoire et histoires''. Septentrion, 1997. * Richard, Pine
''Brian Friel and Ireland's Drama''
Routledge, 1990 * Richard, Pine
''The Diviner: the Art of Brian Friel''
University College Dublin Press, 1999 * Roche, Anthony, ''Brian Friel: Theatre and Politics''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012


Notes


References


External links

* * *
Brian Friel
at
Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association of artists. It was created in 1981 on the initiative of a group of writers with support from the country's Arts Council. Membership, which is by invitation from current member ...

Faber and Faber
– UK publisher of Brian Friel's plays ;Books and articles

ed. by Tony Coult
Brian Friel in Conversation
ed. by Paul Delaney
The Diviner: The Art of Brian Friel
by
Richard Pine Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

Brian Friel, Ireland, and The North
by Scott Boltwood
Le Sujet et Les Je(ux) de Discours dans L'Oeuvre de Brian Friel
by Noel Fitzpatrick
Timeline: the life of Brian

Brian Friel
at ''
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''
Funeral photos
from ''The Irish Times'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Friel, Brian 1929 births 2015 deaths Abbey Theatre Alumni of St Patrick's College, Maynooth Alumni of Ulster University Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize recipients Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Independent members of Seanad Éireann Irish PEN Award for Literature winners Members of the 18th Seanad Columnists from Northern Ireland Male short story writers from Northern Ireland Male dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland People educated at St Columb's College People from County Tyrone People from Glenties Saoithe The Irish Press people The New Yorker people 20th-century dramatists and playwrights from Northern Ireland 20th-century writers from Northern Ireland 20th-century British short story writers Nominated members of Seanad Éireann