Brian Friel's poetic and often surreal style, accompanied by his obsession
with language and his skill for cleverly twisting word and meaning, has made
him Ireland's most admired contributor with a legacy that defines Irish
theatre. Now, Festival residency from Dublin's Gate Theatre brings three of
Friel's plays to the Edinburgh International Festival, having launched them in Australia earlier this
year.
This years EIF's twin themes of Enlightenment and Diaspora loom large in
Friel's work, the struggle between rationale and fallacy no better explored
than in Faith Healer, a work originally rejected in the early 80s as
"not a play" due to the lack of interaction and each perspective
playing out solely through monologues.
Faith Healer, the story of
Fantastic Francis Hardy, a man with a gravely unpredictable gift for miracle cures,
who travels through Scotland and Wales with his wife and manager luring in
gullible audiences, is at the hub of this triad celebrating Friel's 80th birthday. Robin Lefevre directs the piece which explores Friels's gift with
language as the perfect exemplar of perfidious ground conflicted with meaning.
Lefevre is also staging Afterplay, which demonstrates why Friel has
been christened the Irish Chekhov in an imaging of a near-romantic meeting
between a middle aged Andrey Prozorov, brother of Chekhov's Three Sisters, and Sonya Serebriakova, niece of Uncle Vanya.
Patrick
Mason directs the third instalment, The Yalta Game, an adaptation of
Chekhov's short story ‘The Lady with the Lapdog'. This brilliant short story
becomes a stimulating piece of modern theatre exploring the married yet
womanising Muscovite Dmitry Gurov, who finds more than he thought possible when
one holiday tryst will not wane.
This retrospective gives the opportunity to gage the impact Friel has had
over his illustrious career, providing the canon with great works from a
playwright who relies on the opus of words and interpretation, forcing us to
constantly consider our predisposition to instantly believe what we're told.
The three plays run at the King's Theatre from 29 August to 5 September.
Tickets and info available from Edinburgh International Festival
© Lindsay Corr - July 2009