Brian Friel: Shy Man, Showman (2022) - full transcript

Friel is the Irish playwright

that everybody outside Ireland knows.

He is very much established
as the father of Irish theatre.

He treated success and failure alike.

He never revelled in success.

Brian is one of the great storytellers.

What you don't forget is what
it was like to be talking to him.

And sitting at a table with him.

He was lovely. Grumpy.

Like every older Irish man I know.
Grumpy and lovely.

He was a showman but he was very,
very shy as well.



But a few jokes and away he went, y'know?

Packed houses every night. Packed.
Wherever we went.

Brian completely reinvented

what theatre could be.

Really he was an experimenter
all his life.

Brian was not just
a playwright of his time.

But a playwright of his culture.

"Meryl Streep was the star

of Brian Friel's Dancing
at Lughnasa, set in Donegal."

He said, 'We must speak to ourselves

and if others wish to overhear us,
they're welcome.'

I'm at Brian's study.
That's Ralph Fiennes with him.

That's Meryl Streep.

That's Tom Stoppard.



Now at this stage Brian was on
his last months.

I've everything rearranged.
Nothing was there

that Brian would have had there.
He wouldn't have been caught dead.

That's the Tony Award thing.

Well he wouldn't have had them up.
Not at all.

Not at all, not at all. No.

I don't remember what he had
on the wall actually.

But I've everything that I want
to see on the walls.

Yes. Aye. That mattered to him.

His funeral is there in the middle
of it all as well.

It's such a lovely photograph.

It was a lovely sunny day.

"There are of
course, what are called the facts.

And since some people value the
tidiness they seem to afford,

let's have the facts first
and be done with them.

I was born in Omagh
in County Tyrone in 1929.

My father was a principal of a three
teacher school outside the town.

He taught me.

In 1939, when I was 10,
we moved to Derry.

I was at St Columb's College
for five years.

St Patrick's College, Maynooth
for two and a half years.

And St Joseph's training College
for one year.

From 1950 until 1960

I taught in various schools
in and around Derry.

And since that time I have been
writing full time."

Brian's family had taken a house
just across the road.

I used to play the piano
so I would be there,

playing an accompaniment for anybody.

People enjoyed it because
there used to be a regular...

...crowd that would come
and they'd all do songs.

I don't ever remember Brian singing,
funny but, cos he'd a lovely voice.

It was Tenor and his voice was trained.

And that's where I met him first.

Oh, he was the life and soul of dances.

And he used to do the MC and he'd sing.

And he's play the mouth organ
and he played the guitar.

He was a man about town.

Newly married and teaching in Derry,

Brian had begun to write
newspaper articles,

short fiction and essays for radio.

Experimenting with different forms

as he tried to find his voice.

Brian was a short story writer

almost before he was a playwright.

He had this contract
with the New Yorker magazine.

And that was a huge deal
to get that contract because,

you know at that stage in
the late 50's/early 60's

he and Anne are living in Derry.

He's teaching and he's gonna give up
teaching to be a full time writer.

And the thing about the stories as well

is that they weren't written
and then forgotten.

I mean the work, the plays
actually draw quite significantly

on the stories.

For example, this one, in November 1961

has the story 'The Foundry House' in it.

And 'The Foundry House' of course
became 'Aristocrats'.

But nothing was wasted.
It was all there

to be used, to be brought back to life.

To be transformed when he gave
himself over full time

to the theatre.

"I found myself at 30 years of age

embarked on a theatrical career

and almost totally ignorant
of the mechanics of play writing

and play production apart from
a modest intuitive knowledge.

Just like a painter who has
never studied anatomy

or a composer
with no training in harmony.

So I packed my bags

and with my wife and two children

went to Minneapolis in Minnesota

where a new theatre was being
created by Tyrone Guthrie.

And there I lived for six months."

That's me. That's my daughter Mary

who's got a teddy bear of sorts
and that's my daughter Paddy.

It's the first night of one
of the plays in Minneapolis.

We had no income.

All our... All our finances went
into this trip.

But we were foolish probably and young.

Tyrone Guthrie was probably
the most important theatre director

in the world, the English speaking world.

He knew Brian's work, the short stories

that Brian had written in the New Yorker.

And Guthrie invited him to come
to Minnesota in Minneapolis

as an intern, as an observer.

Someone who would just sit around

and watch how plays were put together.

Guthrie could work magic.

I think Brian just thought it was amazing

that the audience were enthralled
by what they were seeing.

He came away from that and attempted
to write plays that...

...nobody else had ever done before.

He would experiment and he tried
in every play almost...

...to do something different.

Those months in America

gave me a sense of liberation.

Remember, this was my first parole

from inbred, claustrophobic Ireland.

And that sense of liberation
conferred on me

a valuable self confidence.

And a necessary perspective.

So that the first play I wrote
immediately after I came home,

and that was
'Philadelphia, Here I Come!',

was a lot more assured

than anything I had attempted before.

Think back to that opening night of
'Philadelphia, Here I Come!'

in Dublin in 1964.

I mean when the lights
go up on the stage,

it's another Irish rural kitchen.

Traditional fare, y'know?
Here we go again.

And then you have Gar Public
and Gar Private.

And Irish theatre has changed.

Shall we have a little read of it?

Shall we try you being Private
for a minute, Charlie?

Okey-doke. And you Public? Yeah.

Here was a play about a young man

who was about to leave Ireland

and all the reasons that he was
about to leave Ireland

were encapsulated in that one night

the night before he left.

The genius of Friel

was to divide that into the public
and the private self.

The public self, a bit like Brian himself

was diffident and not out there
and gregarious.

But the private self was witty,

sharp, intelligent.
A very alive figure.

There's something really important
about that idea of walking around

with a secret version of yourself
inside, isn't it?

I can think of three times
where I've seen a play

or read a play and been envious of...

...some technical idea
in the middle of it.

And two of those three times

the plays were by Brian.

I don't think anybody before then

had thought of having two actors
playing one role simultaneously.

Remember, you're going.

At 7.15 you're still going.

He's nothing but a drunken oul
schoolmaster.

A conceited arrogant washout.

Aw God, the creator,
the redeemer of all the faith.

Get a grip on yourself. Don't be
a damn sentimental fool.

# Philadelphia, here I come.

Moira and Una and Rose
and Agnes and Lizzie.

Yes sir, you're gonna cut a bit of a dash

in them there states.

Great big sexy dames
and nightclubs and high living.

And films and dances and...

Cathy. My own darling Cathy.

# Where bowers of flowers bloom
in the Spring.

I can't. # Each morning at dawning
everything is bright and gay.

# A sun-kissed miss says
don't be late, that's...

Come on, sing up man!

I... I...

# That's why I can't hardly wait.

# Philadelphia, here I come.

That's it laddy buck.

Philadelphia, here I come!

This is extraordinary stuff.

While he's very much established

as almost the father of Irish theatre

and certainly in the eyes of people

from outside this island -

really, he was, I think
an experimenter all his life.

I always just thought
he was the bee's knees

as a playwright.

And he knew that I thought that.

And with courteous reciprocity

he said something nice about my work.

So you know we had a good basis
for our friendship.

And 'Philadelphia, Here I Come!'

was just so effective.

Every single part of it is a critique

of Irish society in the early 60's.

That forced thousands upon thousands

upon thousands of people to
emigrate. To get away.

The stifling nature of church and state.

The stifling nature of
small town Ireland.

'Philadelphia, Here I Come!',

is set in the fictional small town
of Ballybeg,

an imagined version of
Glenties in Donegal

where he spent his childhood holidays.

Brian would use Ballybeg
as the creative landscape

of his plays throughout his career.

Ballybeg, it's the anglicised
version of 'baile beag'. Small town.

Ballybeg doesn't exist,
y'know? It's not on any map.

'If I had to spend another week
in Ballybeg,

I'd go off my bloody head.'

He spent his summers in Donegal

with his mother's side
of the family, the McLoones.

Glenties was a special place

in both his imagination

and his heart.

In the fields and houses

and families of Ballybeg

he was able to create

a theatrical world

that connected with his emotional
and inner world.

I think it's just one of
his great achievements.

In 1966, 'Philadelphia,
Here I Come!'

transferred to Broadway.

And when the curtain fell

after that second of mental
adjustment, they clapped and cheered

and called 'Bravo'.

And standing limp at the back
of the auditorium

I didn't give a damn
what the critics would say.

Happily, they were rapturous next day.

They paid us
the highest compliment they knew.

They said briefly that we were a hit.

Brian struck gold with his first play

to be produced on Broadway.

But following it up with a second
hit proved more difficult.

Cass Maguire which came
after Philadelphia...

That bombed very quick.
And you see Guthrie was great

because he said you just
have to rise above.

Y'know, this was his phrase.

And get up and start again.

So he learned that pretty
early on in his career.

But I think it was the best thing ever

because if he'd had another hit
after Philadelphia

which was a terrific hit in New York

I think he would have said goodbye to me.

Very quickly.

It would have been
a different life, yeah.

Let me take this little treasure chest.

This this actually came from
the Friel household.

After Brian died, Anne and the family

very generously gave me this.

And in these drawers
are a range of letters

from other people to Tyrone Guthrie

who of course was such an influence
on Brian's career.

I put some of Brian's letters

in here as well.

The humour comes across certainly.

I mean kind of impish humour
is all over them.

And he signs off "TT".

Now "TT" is Totus Tuus in Latin.

Totally yours.

Now we all, Brian, all of us went
to St Columb's College.

We all learned Latin.

So on one level you could think well
that's just a homage to the Latin.

But actually Totus Tuus was also

a song by Dana...

...to mark the papal visit of 1979.

And that's what Totus Tuus is about.

Brian was very encouraging.

The first project that I did was
a drama, 'Tush A Bye Baby'.

And Brian sent me this lovely wee card,

just straight after.

He wrote to people all the time.

Y'know he would drop wee cards,
that was his thing.

He did his correspondence in the morning.

But he kept in touch, y'know,

he was somebody who really
connected with people.

And he wrote "Dear Margo,
wonderful news from Gweedore

and so well deserved. Terrific.
Do it again.

Very best, Brian".

And it was that do it again thing
that really was inspirational

y'know that he believed
you could do something.

I remember my father talking about
Brian Friel when we were children.

He used to go to the Waterside
Chapel. He and his wife, Anne.

And I remember him pointing him out
to me one day and saying

that man there is a vey great man
you know.

Derry people claim Bran Friel.

I am quite chauvinistic about the
fact that Brian comes from here.

And wrote about here
and understood this place

and understood how people thought.

"You're a Derry man born and bred.
That's right."

Paddy Friel, schoolmaster

and father of the playwright Brian Friel.

"Has it been your experience
that your students

have been able to get
a fair crack of the whip?"

"Well, the very fact
that they are Catholics

is sufficient to debar them
from employment

in the corporation."

"I've heard since I've been here

a rather peculiar fact and that
is that the Guild Hall

which is the centre of
the corporations activities

here in the city is exclusively
a Unionist employer.

Is this so? That is quite correct.

There's not even a Catholic...

...cleaner employed
in the Guild Hall.

It's policy to keep Catholics

out of the Guild Hall itself."

"We are demanding homes, employment,
freedom of speech

and freedom of assembly."

"We do not wish bloodshed or
violence."

That was the first march really.

October the 5th, 1968.

I can see Brian, I can see myself.

And they've spelt the word
'equal rights' wrong

on the big poster.

We then left the thing

and went through and I remember
at the time thinking

what are all those police doing
at the back of the marchers?

And we went on up and up the steps

to Spencer Road
and came down Spencer Road

and over the bridge without knowing
that anything had gone wrong...

...with the march.

Thinking that the police let them go

or I don't know how we thought it
was going to end.

And it was only when we came back
to the City Hotel reception

that we discovered it had gone mad.
Crazy.

It was because the cameras
were there that time

and it photographed police

treating people pretty badly.

That that's how it got all
the publicity then

and started the whole thing. The
protests. The civil rights protests.

I'll tell you why you march.

Because you live with eleven kids
and a sick husband

in two rooms that aren't fit for animals.

Because you exist on a state subsistence

that is about enough to keep you
alive but too small

to fire your guts.

Because you know your children are
caught in the same morass.

Because for the first time in your life

you grumbled and someone else grumbled.

And someone else.

And you heard each other and became
aware that there were hundreds,

thousands, millions of us all
over the world.

And in a vague groping way,

you were outraged.

The Northern situation is basic

to everything that one does I think,
Hugh. And if you are as I was

a member of what is known
as the Northern minority,

I think you're conditioned from,
almost from birth.

Now I have tackled it only once directly,

In a play called
'The Freedom of the City'.

But I still think that's true
of all the northern writers.

If it's not handled directly

it certainly, it informs
everything they write

and it informs all their attitudes.

'Freedom of the City'
is set in 1970 in Derry,

in the aftermath of a broken up

civil rights march,
a banned civil rights march,

which was broken up by the police

and the British army.

Loosely based on the events of
Bloody Sunday -

which I was present at actually -
it was on a big civil rights march

during Bloody Sunday which was
the 30th January 1972

thirteen people were killed...

Were murdered by the British army.

And one man died later of his wounds.

And Brian's play 'Freedom of the City'

is his own imagined version

of three of the civil rights
demonstrators

breaking in to the Guild Hall in Derry.

So it was a very symbolic play
in that sense.

Lily is this Catholic woman,
married woman,

working as a cleaner.

Mother to eleven children.

Living in abject poverty.

There's a great maternal warmth to her.

A great colloquial turn of phrase.
So from an audience perspective

like you'd say oh, I know her!

I know what she is.

The police surround the building.

And at the end forces them to come out.

And they come out and they're shot.

He needed an audience to feel

the vulnerability and the...

...you know because
they were going to die.

Each of the three characters,
Michael, Skinner and Lily

speak after the moment
they have been shot.

And with Lily you get this wisdom

and self awareness
that she hasn't displayed

throughout the entire play.
And it's to his credit

of his bloody genius that it doesn't jar.

'In the silence before my body
disintegrated

into a purple convulsion,
I thought I glimpsed a tiny truth.

That life had eluded me

because never once in my 43 years

had an experience, an event,
even a small unimportant happening

been isolated and assessed

and articulated.'

'And the fact that this, my last
experience

was defined by this perception

this was the...

...culmination of sorrow.

In a way, I died of grief.'

Now I'm reading that smiling
because I think it's the most...

...insightful thing
I've ever read.

The fact that this, my last experience

was defined by this perception.

It was the culmination of sorrow.

To at 43 to look at your entire life

and that moment afterwards go

ah, not once...

...and then to die again of grief.

Oh! Delicious, delicious.

Awful. Awful.

And in that moment

because he's allowed you to fall
in love with her,

you die yourself of grief.

It was really an extraordinary
political play that...

...was not what Brian
had been used to writing.

He's so controlled normally
there's a slight sort of...

...he's angry in this.

I was doing 'Freedom of the City'

directed by albert Finney
in the Royal Court

and that's when I met Brian

and it was really the combination
of those two great men

made this an incredible
experience for me.

And the great thing about Albert

who is a wonderful man
of the theatre you know

When he read it he said
we have to do this now.

This is happening now.
This happened...

...a few months ago.

We have to do it now.

The Royal Court
in London premiered the play

at the same time it opened in Dublin.

But it was not well received.

The plays depiction of the British army

and the judicial report
into their role in Bloody Sunday

was condemned as sheer propaganda

far fetched and unbelievable.

There was an actor playing
a British soldier in it

and I remember talking to me
and saying...

...oh, he says, I don't believe
a word of it.

No, they must have been doing
something, those people.

I mean it's a very big learn

for an English audience.

It's not a surprise

that the public didn't go for it.

And then we had some bomb scares.

And that was enough to empty the place.

"When you get the British army
moving into your agent's office

and asking questions
about your ringing back to Belfast

to ask questions about you or when
you get threatening letters

you are really astonished. I found
that I was being threatened

by all kinds of people
and all kinds of institutions

and it seemed disproportionate...

...to the statement I had made."

In those days the New York Times

they either made or broke a show.

You know? None of the other
papers really counted.

So the critic there was a man
called Clive Barnes

and he was an Englishman
and Brian was very uneasy

about an Englishman
reviewing this play on Broadway.

He just dreaded it.

And all of the review just was...

...the English couldn't have done...

...the British would never do
anything like that.

Then it closed.
And that was tough.

After the great successes on Broadway,

there was a period then when his plays

weren't successful in New York.

I mean 'Freedom of the City',

you know, it bombed on Broadway.

When you would go to those openings

there would be a list of interviews

all lined up for you the next day

and for the next week.

If you're a failure,
they're all cancelled.

That's it, y'know, so you've gotta
get used to the brush off.

And I remember one time he said
he was sitting on a cushion

on the floor and all the money men
were there.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for
the reviews to come in you see.

And who the hell is this author
anyway he says.

One of them was saying to the other.
And he put up his hand

and said "I'm the author".

And then it didn't work.
The play didn't work.

They almost kicked him out, he says.

Aw, it was awful. A humiliation.

Oh, no things were very lean
for a long time

in the 70's.

One play after another.

Wasn't doing very well.

"Where are you
going from there?"

"I have no idea at all.
I'm...

...a bit lost at the moment
and very confused."

There was a kind of a lean period

where, I mean they were
perfectly good plays

but they just didn't seem
to capture the zeitgeist

or whatever it was.
I'm thinking of plays like

'Volunteers' or 'Living Quarters'.

Plays that just didn't take.

And that must have been very
difficult for a writer.

To have to deal with that because
you must begin to wonder

have I lost the touch?

Is the muse as it were deserting?

And then I think the real feeling

of failure on Broadway

was when they did 'Faith Healer'.

The story of an itinerant healer

his wife and manager as they travel
through remote villages

offering cures to the sick
and the desperate,

this new play was like nothing
Brian had ever written before

and broke all the rules of
conventional drama.

Nobody in Ireland would touch it.

It was four monologues
which first of all was different.

And then it was too scary for actors.

Only then, for some reason or other

James Mason wanted to go back
into theatre.

He was at that stage at
the height of his film career

But he undertook to do it in New York.

But the theatre critics
just said that's not a play.

Monologues. That's not a play.

So it closed after three weeks.

And it would have closed much
earlier only James Mason

didn't take any salary.

He didn't want to leave with only
working for... I mean they can close

in three days there if they want to
but it ran for three weeks.

I was artistic director
of The Abbey at the time

and Brian came back,
we were doing 'Aristocrats',

his play, here.
And Brian came back and he was...

...pretty devastated
by the experience.

And I'd read the play and thought
this is a masterpiece.

I mean it was just, it was so unusual.

The monologue form.

The almost Rashomon

kind of three different versions
of the same story.

I just thought we have to do it.

And I said it to Brian.

I remember we were sitting
in The Plough Lounge

across the road from The Abbey

and I said we have to do this Brian

we have to do this play.
"Oh no, no, no.

I don't know that I could take
the devastation of it again".

And then about two days later,
he called me.

And he said "If you can persuade
Donal McCann

to play Frank Hardy,

we should do it".

Brian knew that this was the man

who could find the core of Frank Hardy.

The complex, dark

the balance between that and the showman.

And we did it here at The Abbey in 1980.

And it transformed
the history of the play.

It suddenly was recognised

as the masterpiece that it is.

'Faith healer.

Faith healing.

A craft without an apprenticeship.

A ministry without responsibility

A vocation...

without a ministry.'

His innovation as a playwright

was blinding.

I mean, y'know when we did 'Faith Healer'

and I read 'Faith Healer' and I thought

'No!

It's just not possible.
How can you do that?'

Four monologues, no plot, no dialogue,

no action, just storytelling.

How do you keep an audience engaged?

And I used to watch Donal McCann,

the most brilliant Francis Hardy ever.

And every night he entranced me.

But it was the quality of
Brian's storytelling.

'I walked across the yard
towards them.'

I played in 'Aristocrats'

and I played Grace in 'Faith Healer'.

And both those women,
y'know Grace particularly

she was so hurt, so damaged.

I sort of love all here sort of...
she's very precise.

And her legal mind.

And the choice of language

and words that she uses
and that she self corrects -

a lot.

And he sometimes writes
very long sentences

with lots of parentheses.

And that to me,

suddenly you start to float

and it really is a bit like
the way I'm speaking but better,

where it's somebody's train of thought

and you're going
with that train of thought

and she doubles back on herself
and then... And I just...

I felt that was revealing
so much of her state of mind.

"Anyhow, that's where the baby is buried

in Kinlochbervie in Sutherland in
the north of Scotland".

"Frank made a wooden cross

to mark the grave and painted it
white and wrote across it -

'Infant child of
Francis and Grace Hardy'.

No name of course
because it was stillborn.

Just 'Infant child'.

And I'm sure that cross is gone by now

because it was a fragile thing and
there were cows in the field

and it wasn't a real cemetery anyway.

And I had the baby in the back of
the van and there was no nurse

or doctor, so no-one knew
anything about it

except Frank and Teddy and me.

And there was no clergyman
at the graveside.

Frank just said a few prayers
that he made up.

So there is no record

of any kind.

And he never talked about it afterwards.

Never once mentioned it again.

And because he didn't, neither did I.

So that was it.

Over and done with.
A finished thing.

Yes.

But I think it's a nice name,
Kinlochbervie.

A complete sound.

A name you wouldn't forget easily.'

I just think it's...

It's... It's just so moving

that she not been allowed...

to name her child.

And so she names...

She sort of gives the name
of the place...

..this weight...

and power I think is...

is just so beautiful.

You could follow the emotional
journey of that woman so easily.

That's what he did, Brian, all the time.

He presented us with the interior
lives of his characters.

You know most times, actors have
to invent backstory.

Because writers don't give you much
so you invent your own.

But with Brian, you know,

you had a wealth

of detail about your character.
Always.

"You can take the entire script

and you can cut out on every single line

you can lose, on every single page
you can lose two lines. Yeah.

Two lines every single page which means

that you're gonna cut the play by
three quarters of an hour.

Now if you do that,

you then have to start re-rehearsing
the entire play."

He used to always say
"I don't let the play leave my desk

until I'm certain

that that is what I want to say".

And he would talk about the music
of the first production.

That the music of the first production

defined the play very often.

Now he doesn't mean just music as...
he means the way the actors...

the way the whole thing came together.

And you did not dare

to change a word

or a comma even.

And I remember we were doing a play

at one point and this young actor

she was very young and very
inexperienced.

And she said, "Brian,

I've been working on this
and this line doesn't work."

Again, everybody in the room

people dived for cover, y'know.

And Brian looked at her over his glasses

and said
"It's your job to make it work."

He wanted as much control
as he could have.

He wouldn't change any of them, y'know.

He would freak if you did.

Brian would gain more control

of the production of his plays

when he and Stephen Rea set up
their own theatre company

called Field Day in 1980.

I'd always wanted to have a company.

A friend of mine drove me to Muff.

Where Brian lived at the time.

And when I said "Look, I think
there's some money

in the Arts Council.
Is there ANY chance

you could write a play for us?"

And he says "Well, I'm writing
one at the moment".

About, eh, place names.

Eventually he sent me
I think the first act

of 'Translations'.

And I knew it was a masterpiece.

And I knew that unless he had
a nervous breakdown

the rest would be a masterpiece
as well, y'know.

"I think ideally if we cut twenty
minutes off it,

I think we'd be..."

Stephen used to arrive with a plastic bag

with his belongings in it. Like
he was a kid brother to Brian

at the time, he really was.
They were such pals.

The kids used to call him 'Grumpy'.

He never...

Y'see we'd have a meal,
we ate in the kitchen

and Brian would be washing dishes.
Stephen never got up

to lift a cup away from the table
or do anything ever.

He just sat there
and you see these two kids

were made lift and everything.

No, they didn't approve of him at times.

But he was the best of craic,
he really was.

And then we got on so well together.

'I must say to you that if at any point

you feel that the organisation
which is teetering into being

will not do your play justice

and you want to withdraw it

and give it to someone who will

I will understand and not be offended.

I may cut my throat but that's all.'

'There is no reason why you should
sacrifice your work

for some hare-brained scheme.

Well it wasn't a hare-brained' scheme.

It was a moment that was...

...where we completely...

...got what our responsibility was

in terms, as artists.

For the place where we lived.

"Stephen and I formed a company,

got a company of actors together.

And we're going into rehearsal
in a few months time."

I mean working with 'Field Day'
was a terrific experience.

Y'know, I was young at the time.

And just to be caught up
in this atmosphere.

There had been nothing like it in Derry.

Here was this theatre company
who were going to

put on a play set in a hedge school
in County Donegal

in the 19th century and they were
going to do it in the Guild Hall,

of all places.

Everybody was aware that they were
doing something pioneering.

I knew in so many ways

it wasn't just the thoughts
and the ideas -

it was trying to turn this space
that so wasn't a theatre

into a theatre.

But I remember the firs time I met Brian.

I was so, so shy.
And both he and Anne

just looked me intently in the eye
and welcomed me.

And ever since that it was like
you were a member of their family.

I liked him but I was wary of him,
y'know?

Because he's a playwright,
he's a famous playwright.

And certainly he was there

in the rehearsal room every day, y'know?

Smoking, y'know. Watching.

"Let's go on. I'm alright,
yes I'm happy. Huh? Yes."

Outside of the rehearsal room in Derry,

political tension and violence

continued to blight life
in Northern Ireland.

"Well the bomb scares make the place

make the enterprise somehow surreal
in some way.

It seems kind of strange
putting on a play

when you're surrounded
by a revolutionary situation."

I will never forget as long as I live,

that opening night of
'Translations' in Derry.

The helicopter was up hovering up above

and you were searched going in
to the Guild Hall.

The front of the hall was full

of guests from the political arena.

I remember Martin McGuinness was
in the front row to the right.

And Marlene Jefferson who was
the first female mayor of Derry

was sitting in the front row
and everybody wondered

what she would make of the play.

And she, you know, she was a Unionist.

But she... an enormously
generous woman.

And you know first nights as you know

are kind of awkward and
I wasn't sure how it'd go on.

And Marlene...

...was in the front,
she stood up.

And gave us a standing...
Everybody had to rise with her.

It's like Handel's Messiah, y'know.

And it became a triumph at that moment.

It was one of the most magical
nights ever

I've experienced in the theatre.

And it was really wonderful
for me to be there.

One of the few times I say it to be
there on the first night,

because I really had no idea

about what I was going to see.

So I just was transported.

'So what do you think? Yes.
Are you happy with that? Yes.'

Set in 1833,

the play tells the story of what happens

when a group of Royal Engineers

arrive in the Irish speaking
community of Ballybeg,

and begin translating the local
Gaelic place names into English

for the first ordinance survey
of Ireland.

And you look at that line again
"Remember words are signals".

I just found this the other day.
This is the original...

...script, working copy of
'Translations' that each of is got.

And when I found it the other day,
this just great...

...struck me in the heart,
y'know. The memory of it.

'Translations' is an example

of how he dealt
with the political question

in a more oblique way
but yet it was so direct too.

You know, the fact that it talked about

the removal of the Irish language
and it's impact on people

and how you feel
this terrible sense of loss

among the community in Ballybeg.

The only thing now you need to add
into that is his pain.

His personal pain. Mm, okay.
From the top? Yeah. Okay.

'Yes, it's a rich language
lieutenant.'

'Full of mythologies and fantasy.

And hope and self deception.'

'A syntax opulent with tomorrows.'

'It is our response to mud cabins

and the diet of potatoes.'

'Our only method of replying to...

...inevitabilities.'

As Friel said to me himself

it's all about language.

And I said, what? The play?
'Translations'? The theatre?

'No, ' he says. 'Everything.

Everything is about language.'

And that has stayed with me.

And that we were offering language as...

...a solution to...

...the terrible, terrible things
that were going on

in this town and in this part of Ireland.

"People say 'Oh, you belong
in the tradition of Irish drama.'

Which is, they say then, Farquhar,
Wilde, Shaw, Sheridan, so on.

And in fact these were all
Irish dramatists

who went over and acquired a voice.

An English voice so that they
could be more acceptable

to English people.

I think what Yeats did for us on
this island was that he said

you don't have to do that,
you can stay on this island...

...speak to your own people
in your own voice...

...and find some kind of
completion in that."

It certainly was a statement, y'know?

And what a statement it was
with this extraordinary play.

The changing of place names,

these historic place names,
Irish place names into English.

'Machrel buide. Ta. Machrel buide.'

'Croch na mona. Croch na mona.'

And Brian, with 'Translations' certainly

found the words

and certainly words
that the play's based on.

What's the right word to translate

that Irish into English?

'Ma raibh ceatog?'

And there's Yolland

trying to find the right words of love

to express to this woman
who's speaking in Irish.

It's just beautifully intermingled,
y'know?

'Lis na na?'

'Lios na ngra.'

Such brilliant playmaking.

These are two people, neither of
which speak the other's language.

And one is speaking Irish,
the other is speaking English.

But we are actually hearing both
in English.

'Don't stop.
I know what you're saying.'

'I would tell you
how I want to be here.'

'To live here.'

'With you.'

'Always.'

'Always. Always?'

'Sorry what is that word? Always?'

'Yes, yes, always.'

And it's only a master
craftsman like Friel -

could first of all dare
to think of that -

and then actually

make it work so brilliantly.

The two participants can't
actually understand each other

but the audience understands
both of them.

That was so deft and simple and dramatic

and effective and moving.

Field Day's goal was to take the play

to Irish audiences
in small towns and villages

all over the country.

'Translations' has become
a modern classic.

It's appeal to audiences around the world

has led to productions
from London and New York

to Minsk and Mumbai.

This is us touring with 'Translations'.

Not everybody is there.
I dunno, Big Liam's not there.

Oh, he's probably in the pub.

We were just like a little touring group.

With this fresh, new, vital play.

Barnstorming around Ireland.
One night stands.

Going round village halls.

Entertaining people but
with something rather special.

We were on the road for a long time

and there was wearing and tearing

and y'know, you didn't have big
deal dressing rooms, y'know.

And I walked in

to what was where we were
supposed to be changing

and Roy Hanlon who was Scottish, y'know?

He was lying on a table, trying to rest.

And I says - Ah Roy, how are you?

And he looks at me and he says -

'Did you ever get the feeling your
career was moving backwards?'

He did.

Ah, dear.

That's the pure actor response
to being on the road.

And as we went round Ireland, he
and Anne would come and visit us.

And it was like your parents
coming to see you, d'you know?

To make sure you were alright

and give you courage to keep
going cos it was hard, y'know.

He loved actors. He really did,
he loved their company.

He admired them enormously
for their courage.

He would come to...

..every opening night he could or
certainly send a telegram.

Which I thought was so classy

and so amazing.

He was lovely. Grumpy.

Lovely, like every

older Irish man I know.
Grumpy and lovely.

And pressing a fiver into my hand
to go up and get him a brandy.

He was a showman.

But he was very, very shy as well.

But a few 'deochs'
and away he went, y'know.

And he was great fun.

Yeah, that's a good line,
shy man and a showman.

That's it for me, yeah.

In later years Brian,

had a kind of an aversion to directors.

He said a certain point

that we were like bus conductors,
he said.

We were told we couldn't get rid
of bus conductors,

we got rid of them and buses still ran

and they were perfectly... So we
could do the same with directors.

Which I found a little disconcerting,

considering that I had just finished
doing a play with him

when he said this.

Brian had his opinions

and he was marked by having

very specific, unchanging positions

on very many things.

Including of course the role
of the director.

Which he famously called

'a bogus job.'

That he didn't see the need for them.

Theatre had survived without them
up to a hundred years ago.

And really there was something bogus

about the whole role of the director.

So you want to bear that in mind

when you're directing Brian's plays.

Brian wrote a dozen more
plays after 'Translations',

always pushing at the boundaries
of theatrical convention.

But it was a return to Ballybeg

and his childhood memories of Glenties

that brought him global recognition

and an international hit late
in his career.

"I feel that I'm in someway...

...haunted by my own past in some
kind of way."

"By childhood memories and by...

...loves that never happened and
loves that didn't flourish

and angers that were misplaced
and misdirected."

"So that I think

this is one of the perks

of literature is that you can
recreate your life

as often as you wish."

'Dancing at Lughnasa' was a phenomenon.

It was a phenomenon here,
it was a phenomenon in London,

it was a phenomenon on Broadway.

It ran on Broadway for a long time.

It won the Tony. It won the Tony
for it's director,

and Tony nominations
for many of it's cast.

It truly was a phenomenon.

He was with Tom Kilroy in London

and he was walking down the Strand.

And there were all these...

...virtually every door
in the Strand, even today

had these sort of cardboard
quilted vagrants.

And Brian said to Kilroy...

...I'm sure there'll be
Irish people among them.

And then he told him a
story of his aunts.

Two of whom he believed to have been

vagrants sleeping on the street.

And Kilroy said, you must write a play.

He had whatever facts
he had which were very few,

I presume.

And then entered into an imaginative

recreation of those people.

And created the play which was
'Dancing at Lughnasa'.

"When I was a boy

we always spent a portion
of our summer holidays

in my mother's old home
near the village of Glenties

in County Donegal."

"I have memories of those holidays

that are as pellucid, as intense

as if they happened last week."

"I remember in detail the shape of
cups hanging in the scullery.

The pattern of flags on
the kitchen floor.

Every knot of wood
on the wooden stairway.

Every door handle. Every smell.

The shape and texture of
every tree around the place."

Friel sets it in a kitchen,

of the Mundy sisters, these five sisters.

And this is probably his most
autobiographical play,

because his mother was one of the sisters

and the four sisters were his aunts.

Like she's letting out something pagan

something wild in her.

And all his characters seems to have that

so there's kind of a pleasure
in that isn't there.

The reason I wanted to play Maggie

was because of the dance.

She's been making the bread and
she's been told this story

about Bernie O'Donnell dancing
with this young man

that she, Maggie has been in love with,

but never got near.

And you sort of feel that
she never let that show.

And she's finished the story and
Marconi's, the radio starts up.

'Maggie turns round.'

'Her head is cocked to the beat.
To the music.

She's breathing deeply, rapidly.

Now her features become animated
by a look of defiance,

of aggression,
a crude mask of happiness.'

'For a few seconds,
she stands still, listening.

Absorbing the rhythm,

surveying her sisters
with her defiant grimace.'

'Now she spreads her fingers
which are covered with flour,

pushes her hair back from her face.

Pulls her hands down her cheeks

and patterns her face

with an instant mask.'

'With this too loud music,
this pounding beat

this shouting, calling, singing,

this parodic reel,

there is a sense of order being
consciously subverted.

Of the women consciously and
crudely caricaturing themselves.

Indeed, of near hysteria
being induced.'

To me it was the most powerful

depiction of

the savage pagan aspect of dance

that I've ever seen staged

since Stravinsky and Nijinsky's
'Rite of Spring', you know,

which is in ballet repertories.

And there again that's...

It's something that wells up
and bursts out

and it's as if the dance

was expressing something

that they couldn't contain it anymore.

You know they're very...

...restrained simple lives.

And whatever their unhappinesses were

was buried and then this
explosion of dance.

It gives me goosebumps to think about it.

What he said to me is that words fail us,

at moments of great emotion.
'Language has become depleted

for me in some way. Words have lost
their accuracy and precision.

So I use dance in the play as a
surrogate for language.'

And because dance

is sort of the art of suggestion

and it's all about nuance

and it's all about what can be
expressed without words.

"It's a far cry from Hollywood Boulevard

but Main St, Glenties was
about to get a visit

from one of the biggest names
in film."

"Meryl Streep was the star of the show

and the show was a special
screening of her latest movie

Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa,
set in Donegal."

Aw, she was great.
She came to Glenties.

And she was lovely.

I think he thought this softened
it up a bit,

from what the original thing
would have been.

But that wouldn't have been
a success maybe

if it hadn't been, yeah.

Cos they really had a tough time,
those girls in the play.

The original play, y'know, their lives.

It wasn't all gentle.

There's a yearning that I think touches

a lot of human beings.

You know there's something in his plays

which is about reaching for love.

For being part of something

that I think we all recognise.

Friel's plays couldn't be more specific

to a time and place.

That makes the universal.

That's why there's ten thousand million,

trillion productions of Lughnasa,

because it speaks to everybody.

He opened things up in a way

that has had a major impact

on younger writers and younger
directors and younger actors.

Everybody knew who he was
and everybody acknowledged

his mastery at what he did.

So yeah, he certainly has been

hugely, I think, influential.

When he was very old, I was in Ireland.

I just wanted to make a pilgrimage

to Brian in Donegal.

And had this delightful day
with Brian and Anne.

Brian was very pleased, he really was.

Way back, the two of them
were in New York

when 'Philadelphia' went on,

and 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern'
went on.

So Brian had been following his
career all along.

Brian is one of the great storytellers,

so we had this wonderful talk together.

I suspect I did most of the listening.

What you don't forget is what
it was like to be talking to him.

And sitting at a table with him

He died the following October.