Brian Friel: Making History, Dancing at Lughnasa, Philadelphia Here I Come, and Translations

by Clyve Jones, Jim Hunter

Since 1965, when Philadelphia, Here I Come! played on Broadway for an extended run, Brian Friel's work has been widely known in the United States as well as in Europe. For the Faber Critical Guide on Brian Friel, Nesta Jones examines both Philadelphia and Lughnasa , as well as two other Friel masterworks, Making History and Translations , and seeks not only to elucidate for both students and fans Friel's poetic language of theater but to place his work in the larger context of modern drama.

(This title is part of the Faber Critical Guides series.)

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2000

Reviews

[Rob Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read most of these years ago while studying my A-Levels. Translations had been a compulsory text the year before and had been recommended by my tutor so I took a look first at that. Friel is from Donnegal where my dad comes from and I had been once or twice. The area is, I once read, immortalised in a song "Donnegal, Donnegal, miles and miles of sweet fuck all", and that was, pretty much, my experience of it, if you leave aside my traumatic introduction to the brutalities of hurling, as played with a couple of lengths of wood.

Translations is the stand-out play for me. I have not yet seen it and would love to do so. I will certainly re-read it. Making History and a couple of the others could have easily slipped into tendentious terrain, and perhaps did. Philadelophia here I come was spoiled at points by an odd refrain from Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Dancing at Lughnasa is the only one I have seen, at a performance in Mold in North Wales. It was wonderful and I would certainly recommend it, albeit it might not read as well on the page as Translations did.

All told, Friel's reputation as a latterday Chekhov is pretty well-deserved, I'd say, and I would hope to see his work performed again.