Brian Friel: Theatre and Politics (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Brian Friel: Theatre and Politics Helen Heusner Lojek Brian Friel: Theatre and Politics, by Anthony Roche, pp. 235. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. $90. Although Brian Friel is best known in the United States for Translations (1980) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), the list of his dramatic works is large and varied, and represents significant intersections between theater and politics on both sides of the Irish border. Anthony Roche’s new study provides both an introduction to the author he rightly terms “Ireland’s leading contemporary playwright,” and a nuanced examination that will expand the understandings of readers and theatergoers already familiar with Friel. Roche draws on his own extensive experience as an interpreter of Irish drama (his indispensable Contemporary Irish Drama, the second edition of which appeared in 2009, for example), on his familiarity with multiple productions of the plays, on archival collections of Friel’s papers in the National Library of Ireland, on correspondence in the Guthrie Theatre Archive in Minnesota, and on first-hand experience with the politics of Irish theater, government, and society. The resulting analysis reveals the multiple factors and rethinkings that produced the now-familiar polished shapes of Friel’s plays. This multi-sourced approach is particularly effective in drawing out contemporary political resonances in such texts as Translations and Faith Healer. Roche’s understanding of the circumstances of performance, and his knowledge of the actors who embodied parts—which were sometimes written with them in mind—enhances his exploration of the ways that different productions have illuminated aspects of the plays. He is alive to Friel’s ability to incorporate new forms, revitalizing his drama with sometimes radical scripts and experiments. Chapter Five, “The Politics of Space,” makes a significant contribution to the emerging discussion of the use of space in Irish drama, and the book as a whole opens up all the plays—including those that audiences may have struggled to understand and appreciate. The approach is largely but not strictly chronological, allowing Roche to juxtapose plays that illuminate each other, and [End Page 150] to reveal the extent to which Friel over the years has sometimes changed not only his focus but also his mind, ranging from “ambivalence” to “outright contradiction” about such matters as success, his own early works, the need for artists to address political tensions, and directors. Both experts and relative novices will find these analyses helpful. Roche’s direct reliance on theory is subtle. He incorporates details of theory, plot, and history without talking down to his readers. For those unfamiliar with Friel’s 1958 radio play To This Hard House, for example, Roche makes clear and succinct links between that early work and both King Lear and Translations. Roche is alive to Friel’s linguistic allusions: Skinner, in The Freedom of the City, echoes King Lear; Friel’s notes for Wonderful Tennessee suggest that Taoiseach Charles Haughey’s personality “fed into” the creation of Terry Martin; there are details in Molly Sweeney that owe a debt to work by neurologist Oliver Sacks and to images of blindness in Oedipus Rex and King Lear. The dead children that are so notable a feature in drama by Friel (and for that matter, many other Irish playwrights) begin with the dead baby in another 1958 radio play, A Sort of Freedom. Roche demonstrates an admirable willingness to explore, but not impose, unusual explanations that some might regard as far-fetched. His discussion of Yolland’s disappearance in Translations takes on precisely this challenge, as Roche draws connections between the nineteenth-century Doalty twins and the twentieth century’s paramilitary groups and British army. The nuanced discussion of both text and politics reveals the richness of Friel’s work. Readers of this study are likely to hope that Roche—whose broad range and influences match those of the playwright he discusses—will in the future address issues that are not his concern here. Roche places Friel clearly in the traditions of both Irish and British drama, but spends little time on other English-language drama. Arthur Miller’s use of flashbacks and of sets combining various spaces, for example, merits discussion, as does Miller’s understanding of “Tragedy and...