All 29 plays by Irish playwright Brian Friel will be staged in the north-west of Ireland over the next five years in an ambitious cross-border celebration marking the centenary of his birth.
Often referred to an the ‘Irish Chekhov’, his work has been performed from Dublin to Broadway.
FrielDays: A Homecoming will bring all his plays to cross-border locations in his homeland - the north-west of Ireland - a constant inspiration to Friel and a part of the world he rarely left.
Beginning in 2025, the 10th anniversary of Friel’s death, FrielDays will build each year, so that by 2029, the centenary of Friel’s birth, all of his plays will have been performed.
Each play will open at the time of year in which it was set by Friel, and on a significant anniversary.
Running from August 1 to September 1, the first year will feature Dancing at Lughnasa – for which Friel won a Tony award - Translations, The Home Place, Faith Healer and Volunteers (50th anniversary) will be staged.
Born in the Co Tyrone town of Omagh, Friel spent the first half of his life in Northern Ireland and the last 43 years of his life in the Inishowen peninsula, Co Donegal.
Much of his work is set in the fictional small Donegal town of Ballybeg and explores theme of cultural identity, social and historical change, loss and disillusionment, the search for belief and the importance of language.
It is fitting that FrielDays, conceived and produced by Ireland’s leading producer of cross-border arts festivals Arts Over Borders, will bring his plays to villages, towns, cities and ruralsites across the north-west of Ireland.
These including: Glenties, Bundoran, Culdaff, Rathmullan, Gweedore, Glencolmcille, Omagh, Letterkenny and Derry.
Commenting on the ambitious five-year festival Sean Doran and Liam Browne of Arts Over Borders said: “Brian Friel is Ireland’s preeminent dramatist of the late 20th century. He is the ultimate ‘shared island’ dramatist, the 86 years of his life shared almost equally between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
“Fittingly, FrielDays is a truly transnational cross-border project, bringing the stories and characters of Friel’s life’s work to the very locations that inspired their creation.”
Some performances will enable the audience to watch in real time. For example, Translations, which is set over several days, will have a small number of tickets for the first act on Wednesday, the second on Friday, and for the third on Saturday.
Further symbolism will include a ‘hedge school’ running alongside the plays. Named after the secret schools that operated in the 18th and 19th centuries for Catholics when their education was banned.
Audiences will be bussed deeper into secret locations for their hedge-school classes where they will be able to explore each play in detail, finding out more about the social, cultural and political backdrop to the writing from writers, scientists, musicians and historians during and after each performance.
