Deprovincializing Brian Friel's Drama in America, 2009 and 2014: Dancing at Lughnasa in Fort Myers, Florida, and Faith Healer in Houston, Texas

Abstract

While American regional theatre has flourished for decades, hardly any critics with a national profile pay attention to it, but theatre critic Terry Teachout has recently argued that criticism must catch up with this ‘deprovincialized’ drama, drawing upon his viewing of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa in a memorable 2009 production by the Florida Repertory Theatre in Fort Myers. I tentatively explore through that production of Lughnasa what implications its staging in a locale with a strong Hispanic concentration might have for American theatre and for its growing immigrant population as the United States becomes ever more divided, yet still idealizes plurality and immigration. I then assess the Stark Naked Theatre Company's stirring 2014 production of Faith Healer in Houston, Texas. Actors and local critics mostly neglected Irish aspects of the play – unlike their supposed more enlightened New York critics and audiences, who tend to read Irish drama through outmoded stereotypes – and instead privileged its spiritual qualities and its potential for showcasing theatre as an art form.