The Saucer of Larks - Stories of Ireland

Brian Friel

Literature & Fiction

Arrow Bks.

Selected Plays

Faber and Faber Ltd.

Contents: Philadelphia, Here I Come; The Freedom of the City; Living Quarters; Aristocrats; Faith Healer; Translations Brian Friel was born in County Tyrone in 1929 and worked as a teacher before turning to full-time writing in 1960.  His first stage success was in 1964 with Philadelphia, Here I Come, which established his claim as heir to such distinguished predecessors as Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, and Behan.  In 1979 he and actor Stephen Rea formed the Field Day Theatre Company, whose first theatrical production was Friel's Translations in 1980.Also included in this selection are The Freedom of the City, set in Londonderry in 1970; Living Quarters, which Desmond MacAvok in the Evening Presscalled "one of the most fascinating and, in the end, truly moving evenings. . .in Irish Theatre"; Faith Healer, a metaphoric depiction of the artist and his gift' and Aristocrats, "as fine and as stimulating and as warm a piece of writing as had appeared on the Irish stage for many years," according to David Nowland, the Irish Times. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dramas & Plays

The Home Place

Faber&Faber

Making History

Samuel. French

Contents: Philadelphia, Here I Come; The Freedom of the City; Living Quarters; Aristocrats; Faith Healer; Translations 
Brian Friel was born in County Tyrone in 1929 and worked as a teacher before turning to full-time writing in 1960. His first stage success was in 1964 with Philadelphia, Here I Come, which established his claim as heir to such distinguished predecessors as Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, and Behan. In 1979 he and actor Stephen Rea formed the Field Day Theatre Company, whose first theatrical production was Friel's Translations in 1980.
 Also included in this selection are The Freedom of the City, set in Londonderry in 1970; Living Quarters, which Desmond MacAvok in the Evening Presscalled "one of the most fascinating and, in the end, truly moving evenings. . .in Irish Theatre"; Faith Healer, a metaphoric depiction of the artist and his gift' and Aristocrats, "as fine and as stimulating and as warm a piece of writing as had appeared on the Irish stage for many years," according to David Nowland, the Irish Times. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Selected Plays (Irish Drama Selections)

Seamus, Deane

The Catholic University of America Press

It is 1936 and harvest time in County Donegal. In a house just outside the village of Ballybeg live the five Mundy sisters, barely making ends meet, their ages ranging from twenty-six up to forty. The two male members of the household are brother Jack, a missionary priest, repatriated from Africa by his superiors after twenty-five years, and the seven-year-old child of the youngest sister. In depicting two days in the life of this menage, Brian Friel evokes not simply the interior landscape of a group of human beings trapped in their domestic situation, but the wider landscape, interior and exterior, Christian and pagan, of which they are nonetheless a part.

Dancing at Lughnasa

FRIEL, Brian

Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Molly Sweeney, by the great Irish playwright Brian Friel, tells the story of married couple Molly and Frank, who live in a remote Irish village. Molly has been blind since birth, but now a surgeon Mr. Rice believes he may be able to restore her sight. In a series of interwoven monologues, Molly Sweeney takes us into the minds of three people with very different expectations of what will happen when Molly regains her vision.
 A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Jenny Bacon, Robert Breuler, Rick Snyder

Molly Sweeney. (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)

Humor & Entertainment

Brian Friel, author of the Tony Award-winning Dancing at Lughnasa, is widely recognized as one of the world's preeminent dramatists. His latest work, the rich and haunting play, Give Me Your Answer, Do!, is already an international success. Gathered together in the remote County Donegal home of novelist Tom Connolly and his alcoholic wife, Daisy, are: David Knight, a visiting scholar who is appraising Tom's papers (and, by inference, his work); Garret Fitzmaurice, a commercially successful writer whose marriage to Grainne is on the brink of disaster; and Daisy's eccentric father and embittered, arthritic mother. Over dinner, the long-smothered desires and fervent disappointments of this group are brought to the fore as the layers of each character are peeled away--revealing their mutual humiliation, mistrust, and resentment. In this heart-wrenching comedy, Friel calls into question the definition of success while also chronicling the tragic circular relationship between professional and personal pain."Gripping! A play of surpassing beauty and complexity, a lyrical and mysterious creation by a great playwright." --The Wall Street Journal

Give Me Your Answer, Do! - Acting Edition

Arts & Photography

Performing Arts

Along with Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya is credited as one of Chekhov's masterpieces and a significant precursor of modern drama. Set on a country estate in late nineteenth century Russia, Uncle Vanya is in part a study of the enervation of Russian middle-class provincial life. The major dynamics between the characters themselves are centred on two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere and a flirtation that brings disaster. Mixing the tragic and the absurd and dealing with a form that allows for ambiguity and contradiction, Uncle Vanya has been deemed "the first modernist play". (David Lan)

Uncle Vanya: A Version of the Play by Anton Chekhov (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)

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Books by Brian Friel