Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa is a memory play told from the perspective of Michael (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), nephew to five sisters living in a cottage near the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is slow to get going, but it gets under your skin, and you don’t realise it until long afterwards. It’s a play that is joyful and sad, charming and moving.
‘The thoughtful richness of the play is fully realised’: DANCING AT LUGHNASA – National Theatre ★★★★
Sadness and failure have their own grandeur, like the bleak back-hills projected behind Robert Jones’ sweeping vista of a set. In Josie Rourke’s deeply atmospheric production of Dancing At Lughnasa at the National Theatre, rural Donegal desolation looms behind small domesticity, just as the pagan wildness of human nature threatens the threadbare sedateness of Catholicism.
‘Celebrating the breadth & creativity of the theatre industry’: THE MEANING OF ZONG / AFTERPLAY – BBC Sounds
The Meaning of Zong and Afterplay showcase the power of audio drama to transport an audience’s imagination and to see the familiar a little differently.
With light at the end of the tunnel for live performance and some of our biggest institutions announcing summer programmes at their venues, the BBC’s new Lights Up Festival has arrived at a moment of optimism, not just acting as a reminder of all …
NEWS: Old Vic’s In Camera: Playback series gives audiences the chance to revisit past streamed productions
The Old Vic has announced In Camera: Playback, a limited series offering people the chance to revisit the first three live streamed Old Vic: In Camera productions.
‘A haunting & spellbinding play’: FAITH HEALER – Old Vic (Online review)
The third of the Old Vic’s ‘In Camera’ live streamed performances is Brian Friel’s 1979 play Faith Healer, often described as his masterpiece.
‘Showcases 3 actors at the top of their game’: FAITH HEALER – Old Vic (Online review)
Ultimately this Old Vic in Camera production of Faith Healer, starring Michael Sheen, David Threlfall and Indira Varma, is a flawless rendition of a deeply engrossing and emotional text.
NEWS: Michael Sheen, David Threlfall & Indira Varma star in Brian Friel’s Faith Healer as part of The Old Vic’s In Camera season
The Old Vic has announced the next in the Old Vic: In Camera series with a scratch performance of Brian Friel’s classic play Faith Healer. The production will star Michael Sheen, David Threlfall and Indira Varma.
‘Friel’s characters are allowed to blossom’: TRANSLATIONS – National Theatre
Brian Friel’s Translations is a rich and complex play and, in Ian Rickson’s production which returns for a second run in the Olivier, its layers are drawn out through the performances of a high class ensemble ensemble.
‘It’s hard to fault this fabulous production’: THE CONVERT – Young Vic Theatre
The Convert, at the Young Vic Theatre, a thrilling revival of Black Panther Danai Gurira’s 2012 play about Christianity and imperialism is a heartfelt cry for justice.
‘Sadness & tragedy in some of the narratives’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse
My problem with Aristocrats is that there is often a lot happening and sometimes it too easily diverts attention from the central narrative.
Text of the Day: Aristocrats
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
‘Oddly unemotional, disjointed & not entirely satisfying’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse
Director Lyndsey Turner is clearly impatient with the tradition of playing this melancholy drama as a tribute to Chekhov, and her production is thoroughly anti-naturalistic.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Aristocrats at the Donmar Warehouse
Lyndsey Turner directs this new production of Brian Friel’s play Aristocrats about a generation whose past threatens their future. Here, Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews….
‘Interesting without being outright memorable’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse ★★★
Aristocrats does show once again Brian Friel’s remarkable ability to understand and cross religious and personal boundaries, but this time it fails to grapple the heart with quite the keenness of some of his other work.
‘In a summer of great Irish drama, this feels unsatisfactory by comparison’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse
There’s little for the cast to improve because the faults in Aristocrats lie with Friel. This production draws-out all of the core themes but cannot overcome the play’s reliance on heavy exposition and failure to satisfactorily resolve its own questions about the past of these characters.
‘Calling Friel the Irish Chekhov is trite now, but it is all there’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★
Brian Friel’s gift is humane ambiguity, refusing to allow tidy judgements on his characters. Or even – though his theme is Ireland’s history – on the social structures they inhabit.
NEWS: Paul Higgins & James Laurenson join the cast of Brian Friel’s Aristocrats at the Donmar Warehouse
Paul Higgins and James Laurenson will join the previously announced Elaine Cassidy, David Dawson, David Ganly, Emmet Kirwan, Aisling Loftus, Ciaran McIntyre and Eileen Walsh in the cast for Brian Friel’s play Aristocrats, at the Donmar Warehouse from 2 August to 22 September 2018 (press night is 9 August).
Text of the Day: Translations at the National Theatre
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
‘Empathetic, entertaining, relevant & moving revival’: TRANSLATIONS – National Theatre
So there’s a real feeling of anticipation about this revival of his 1980 drama, Translations, a major play which has enjoyed an enormously good international reputation since its first staging at the Guildhall in Derry, Northern Ireland.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Translations at the National Theatre
Translations, Brian Friel’s account of nationhood as seen through the eyes of those living in a small village is now playing at the National Theatre, starring Colin Morgan and Ciarán Hinds. Here’s what critics have been saying about it…
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