Bloomsbury The Theatre of Brian Friel: Tradition and Modernity (Critical Companions)

Brian Friel is Ireland's foremost living playwright, whose work spans fifty years and has won numerous awards, including three Tonys and a Lifetime Achievement Arts Award. Author of twenty-five plays, and whose work is studied at GCSE and A level (UK), and the Leaving Certificate (Ire), besides at undergraduate level, he is regarded as a classic in contemporary drama studies. Christopher Murray offers the definitive guide to Friel's work; both a detailed study of individual plays and an exploration of Friel's dual commitment to tradition and modernity across his oeuvre. Beginning with Friel's 1964 work Philadelphia, Here I Come! it follows a broadly chronological route through the principle plays, including Aristocrats, Faith Healer, Translations, Dancing at Lughnasa, Molly Sweeney and The Home Place. Along the way it considers themes of exile, politics, fathers and sons, belief and ritual, history, memory, gender inequality, and loss, all set against the dialectic of tradition and modernity. Review "Creative, fertile and fresh. ... Murray's kind of criticism is best described as classical, representing an exemplary standard within a basically traditional and long-established form or style. As a generalist analysis of Friel's plays and their impact on contemporary theatre, this is the best, most extensive and most up-to-date study so far." -Ulf Dantanus, UK, Nordic Irish Studies"What sets this monograph apart from others devoted to this key playwright are its many illuminating, nuanced, surprising 'framings' of Friel's plays by other plays from the Irish, English, and European stage. Murray's most provocative insights arise from his imaginative juxtapositions, for example, of Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Miller's Death of a Salesman ... Murray's fluency with theater history beyond the twentieth-century Irish stage gives his survey its fl[a]vor and edge ... I would include [The Theatre of Brian Friel] ... among the indispensable recent full-length appraisals of this seminal figure of the Irish stag." - Brian W. Shaffer, Rhodes College, English Literature in Transition About the Author Christopher Murray is Emeritus Professor of English and Drama at University College, Dublin, where he was the founder member and first director of the UCD Drama Centre offering MA and PhD in Modern Drama Studies. His many publications include Twentieth-Century Irish Drama: Mirror up to Nation. He is chair of the board of directors of the Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin.