I’ll come clean before I start this entry. I do not sit at home musing upon whether or not Brian Friel deserves to be considered Ireland’s pre-eminent playwright. Honest. I had a class on Friel last week which made me question his star-studded, status. Let us not forget the momentous occasion of Friel’s 70th birthday which was celebrated in Dublin with the Friel Festival. This was an extravaganza during which ten of his plays were staged or presented as dramatic readings; in conjunction with the festival were a conference, National Library Exhibition, film screenings, outreach programmes, pre-show talks and the launching of an issue of The Irish University Review devoted to his work. In 2006 Friel was elected a Saoi, one of the five elite members of Aosdána (an association of people in Ireland who have achieved distinction in the arts). There is no doubt that this man is a national celebrity.
But Friel’s plays are disconcerting, largely because they do not need to be plays. They read exceptionally well as short stories or novellas. It comes as no surprise to discover that Friel started his literary career by writing short stories for The New Yorker and subsequently published two well received collections: The Saucer of Larks (1962) and The Gold in the Sea (1966). The authorial control in his plays is palpable in every detail: the stage directions virtually remove the need for interpretation and reduce the artistic responsibility of the director to a minimum. There is very little innovation for a playwright whose reputation has been at least partially founded upon his originality. His 1980 play Translations, for example, is utterly at one with the Irish drama’s textual tradition. Friel himself declared the play was ‘about language and only about language’. It is an academic theme that is perhaps conveyed best on the page; it does not rely on dramatic tension. The only episode that benefits from a translation – forgive me – to the stage is the love scene between Yolland and Maire.
It often feels as though Friel relies upon external dramas – such as the Troubles of the North – to enliven his superbly clever and beautifully crafted literary choreography. The Freedom of the City (1973) is about Bloody Sunday, while the Mundy Scheme (1969) and Volunteers (1975) are satires on the Irish government. However, especially in The Freedom of the City, the point of the play is not about the tragedy itself; it does not focus on the dramatic moment but on sideline political issues of poverty, class and gender. At best this is the confusion of someone who cannot decide whether he’d rather be an academic or a playwright; at worst it is the exploitation of a particularly violent and brutal moment in Irish history to draw attention to a moralising social commentary.
Next week it’s Frank McGuinness, I’ll let you know what I think…