The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel

Brian Friel is widely recognized as Ireland's greatest living playwright, winning an international reputation through such acclaimed works as Translations (1980) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). This collection of specially commissioned essays includes contributions from leading commentators on Friel's work (including two fellow playwrights) and explores the entire range of his career from his 1964 breakthrough with Philadelphia, Here I Come! to his most recent success in Dublin and London with The Home Place (2005). The essays approach Friel's plays both as literary texts and as performed drama, and provide the perfect introduction for students of both English and Theatre Studies, as well as theatregoers. The collection considers Friel's lesser-known works alongside his more celebrated plays and provides a comprehensive critical survey of his career. This is the most up to date and comprehensive study of Friel's work to be published, and includes a chronology and further reading suggestions.


Contents

Introduction / Anthony Roche
The early plays / Thomas Kilroy
Surviving the 1960s : three plays by Brian Friel, 1968-1971 / Frank McGuinness
Friel and the Northern Ireland "Troubles" play / Stephen Watt
Family affairs : Friel's plays of the late 1970s / Anthony Roche
Five ways of looking at Faith healer / Nicholas Grene
Translations, the Field day debate and the re-imagining of Irish identity / Martine Pelletier
Dancing at Lughnasa and the unfinished revolution / Helen Lojek
The late plays / George O'Brien
Friel's Irish Russia / Richard Pine
Friel and performance history / Patrick Burke
Friel's dramaturgy : the visual dimension / Richard Allen Cave
Performativity, unruly bodies and gender in Brian Friel's drama / Anna McMullan
Brian Friel as postcolonial playwright / Csilla Bertha.