Also by Anthony Roche: CONTEMPORARY IRISH DRAMA (second edition) THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO BRIAN FRIEL (editor)

Brian Friel

Also by Anthony Roche: CONTEMPORARY IRISH DRAMA (second edition) THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO BRIAN FRIEL (editor)

Brian Friel Theatre and Politics Anthony Roche

Anthony Roche 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-57647-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36635-4 ISBN 978-0-230-30553-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230305533 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Roche, Anthony. Brian Friel: theatre and politics/anthony Roche. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Friel, Brian Criticism and interpretation. 2. Friel, Brian Political and social views. 3. Ireland In literature. 4. Northern Ireland In literature. I. Title. PR6056.R5Z87 2011 822'.914 dc22 2011012450 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

To Katy, With love and gratitude

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Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 Escaping Containment: The Early Plays of Brian Friel 8 2 Friel and the Director: Tyrone Guthrie and Hilton Edwards 32 3 Fantasy in Friel 58 4 Brian Friel and Contemporary British Drama: The Missing Dimension 84 5 The Politics of Space: Renegotiating Relationships in Friel s Plays of the 1970s 105 6 Friel s Translations: An Inquiry into the Disappearance of Lieutenant George Yolland 130 7 Memory and History 152 8 Negotiating the Present 177 Conclusion 203 Notes 208 Bibliography 226 Index 231 vii

Acknowledgements There are a lot of people to be acknowledged in the preparation of this book. I would first of all like to thank University College Dublin s President Hugh Brady and Vice-President of Research, Des Fitzgerald, for a President s Research Fellowship in 2006 7, which enabled me to spend the time with the Brian Friel Papers in the National Library of Ireland that laid the foundations for this study. I am grateful to the staff of the National Library who facilitated my work in the archive, in particular Tom Desmond. I also thank the Guthrie Theater Archive, Performing Arts Archive, Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Richard Pine and Frank McGuinness were as usual my invaluable sounding boards, joined by Anna McMullan who provided various occasions for me to try out the material. I am grateful to the following colleagues in the UCD School of English, Drama and Film: Luca Crispi; Gerardine Meaney; Christopher Murray; Declan Kiberd; Emilie Pine; and to colleagues in Drama Studies at UCD Finola Cronin, Eamonn Jordan, Cathy Leeney and Ian Walsh for their support. Special thanks to Catriona Clutterbuck, who first suggested I write a book solely about Brian Friel, to James Ryan, for the right advice on how to end it, and to Eamonn Jordan, for his careful reading of the final manuscript. I wish to thank my wonderful Third Year English students in the Brian Friel seminar I have taught over the past four years; especially Caitriona Ennis who with Katie McCann produced a memorable Dancing at Lughnasa in Dramsoc. I am also grateful to my Ph.D. student, Patrick O Donnell, who worked on Tyrone Guthrie, and to Harry White of the School of Music. In Trinity College, Dublin, Nicholas Grene in the School of English and Melissa Sihra in Drama Studies both helped the work, as did Brian Arkins and Patrick Lonergan at NUI-Galway. The same was true of the following in Drama Studies at Queen s University, Belfast: David Grant, Paul Murphy and Mark Phelan. Christopher Fitz-Simon, Mary Luckhurst of the University of York and Stephen Watt of Indiana University all helped me along the way. Thomas Dillon Redshaw of Irish Studies at the University of St Thomas, St Paul, and James Rogers, editor of New Hibernia Review, both facilitated my stay in the Twin Cities and visit to the Guthrie Theater. In addition to the creative individuals who put on the many Friel productions I have seen, I would particularly like to thank the following from the theatrical community, all of whom fed the work: actor/director Denis Conway and actor David Heap; directors Sean Holmes and Patrick Mason; producer Noel Pearson; Michael Colgan, director of Dublin s Gate Theatre; Joe Dowling, director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis; Fiach viii

Acknowledgements ix MacConghail, director of the Abbey Theatre and literary manager Aideen Howard. Joe Mulholland of the McGill Summer School in Glenties, County Donegal, Anne McGrory of the Macklin School in Culdaff in Inishowen and photographer Bobby Hanvey brought it all closer to home. I owe a great debt to Christabel Scaife, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, who believed in and encouraged the book from the start and who never failed to say the right thing; and to her successor, Paula Kennedy, and assistant editor Ben Doyle, who brought it through the final stages. I am grateful to Pat Donlon, director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig in County Monaghan, where several of these chapters were drafted, for always giving me Guthrie s study. My greatest debts are the last named: to Brian Friel not only for the wondrous work but for his unfailing courtesy and good humour. And to my family: Merlin Roche, who was an invaluable research assistant in the early stages of the project; Louis Roche, who understood what Daddy was up to; and my wife, Katy Hayes, whose love and profound knowledge of the theatre kept her husband and the book on track until the very end. I would like to thank Brian Friel for his permission to reproduce unpublished material from the Brian Friel Papers at the National Library of Ireland, Dublin. I would also like to thank Julia Crampton and Michael Travers for permission to publish extracts from the correspondence of Tyrone Guthrie and Hilton Edwards respectively in Chapter 2. I would like to thank the following publishers for permission to quote from the plays: Faber and Faber (London); Peter Fallon of The Gallery Press (Oldcastle, Co. Meath).