Brian+Friel

brian friel

Brian Friel
Born 9 January 1929, Catholic, in Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, Brian Friel is one of Ireland's most prominent playwrights. In addition to his published plays, he has written short stories; screenplays; film, TV and Radio adaptations of his plays; and several pieces of non-fiction on the role of theatre and the artist. Friel's father was a native of Derry and a primary school principal. His mother was from Donegal and Friel spent many holidays there. In 1939 the family moved to Derry, where Friel's father had a teaching position at the Long Tower school. Friel attended the same school and then went on to attend secondary school at Saint Columb's College, Derry. He attended the Republic of Ireland's national seminary, Saint Patrick's College, near Dublin but instead of going on to the priesthood, he took a post-graduate teaching course in Belfast. He started teaching in Derry in 1950 and wrote in the meantime. His first radio play __A Sort of Freedom__ aired on BBC in 1958. In 1959 his first short story, "The Skelper," appeared in the __New Yorker__ and his first stage play, __The Francophile__, was performed at the Group Theatre, Belfast. In 1960 he retired from teaching to write full-time. Friel's early life had a strong influence on his writing. Though his father was a teacher, his grandparents, whose first language was Irish, were illiterate peasants from County Donegal whose first language was Irish. Thus his own family exemplifies the divisions between traditional and modern Ulster and Ireland, a recurring theme for Friel. Donegal is another influence that features strongly in Friel's life and work. He moved there in 1969 because he always felt his roots lay in Donegal "partly to get into the countryside and partly to get into the Republic"; he left partly because of the political situation in the North, where he says, "The sense of frustration which I felt under the tight and immovable Unionist regime became distasteful" (qtd. in Andrews 2). He had joined the Nationalist Party in Derry but had left in 1967, disappointed with its lack of initiative. Many of his plays are set in Ballybeg, ‘a remote part of Donegal' and, as Seamus Deane notes, in "that borderland of Derry, Donegal and Tyrone in which a largely Catholic community leads a reduced existence under the pressure of political and economic oppression" (qtd. in Andrews 2). In 1980, Friel helped found the [|Field Day Theatre Company] which is committed to the search for "a middle ground between the country's entrenched positions" (qtd. in Andrews 6) to help the Irish explore new identities for themselves. Brian Friel married Anne Morrison in 1954 and has four daughters and one son. Shy, elusive, yet playful and sceptical, he has made very few personal statements. In his "Self Portrait" he says, > I am married, have five children, live in the country, smoke too much, fish a bit, read a lot, worry a lot, get involved in sporadic causes and invariably regret the involvement, and hope that between now and my death I will have acquired a religion, a philosophy, a sense of life that will make the end less frightening than it appears to me at this moment. (qtd. in Andrews 2) Often compared to Anton Chekhov, Brian Friel resists all explanation and categorisation; in "The Man from God Knows Where," the title of an interview of Friel, he says, > The interviewer's chestnut: When did you know you were going to be a writer? The answer is, I've no idea. What other writers influenced you most strongly? I've no idea. Which of your plays is your favourite? None of them. Which if your stories? Most of them embarrass me. So you think the atmosphere in Ireland is hostile or friendly to the artist? I'm thinking of my lunch. So you see any relationship between dwindling theatrical audiences all over the world and the fragmentation of what we might call the theatrical thrust into disparate movements like Theatre of Cruelty, Tactile Theatre, Nude Theatre, Theatre of Despair, etc., etc., Or would you say, Mr. Friel, that the influence of Heidegger is only beginning to be felt in the drama and that Beckett and Pinter are John the Baptists of a great new movement? Well, in answer to that I'd say that—I'd say that I'm a middle-aged man and that I tire easily and that I'd like to go out for a walk now. (qtd. in Andrews 3)
 * Biography**

Brian Friel's plays have premiered and been produced at prestigious venues like the Abbey Theatre, London's West End and Broadway and have been highly successful everywhere. His first major play, __Philadelphia, Here I Come!__ was the hit of the 1964 Dublin Theatre Festival. In 1972 he was elected as a member of the Irish Academy of Letters. In 1981, __Translations__, one of his seminal pieces, was awarded the Ewart-Biggs Peace Prize. After co-founding [|Field Day], Friel continued his interest in the arts as a member of Aosdana, the national treasure of Irish artists, to which he was elected in 1982. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by the National University of Ireland in 1983, and in 1987 was nominated to the Irish Senate. __[|Dancing at Lughnasa]__, probably his most successful play so far, received three Tony Awards in 1992, including Best Play.
 * Awards and Achievements**

Friel's plays deal with identity, the notion of truth, and communication, which he explores through the nature of language. Identity is formed through memory, both public and private, and it is the collective memories of a community which distinguish it from others. However, communal memory often conflicts with individual experience and several communal memories may exist simultaneously even within an individual. The different associative and emotive memories and experiences of individuals and communities allow for different perspectives and perceptions of reality to exist. In examining the issue of memory, Friel exposes the falsity in the notion of a single, comprehensive history or truth. What becomes important is not a factual history or identity but exploring different histories and identities. Language, for Friel, is closely implicated with identity. The names of places, for example, contain within them the history and memories, both public and private, associated with them. However, because of this difference in association, there is always a gap in communication. Friel's later plays expose the inadequacy of language in any real communication and move towards an exchange beyond language.
 * Themes**