The Theatre of Brian Friel by Christopher Murray

The Theatre of Brian Friel by Christopher Murray

A Critical Companion to the theatre of Ireland's foremost living playwright, whose work spans fifty years and has won numerous awards, including three Tonys and a Lifetime Achievement Arts Award. Christopher Murray's study is the definitive guide to Brian Friel's work for students and theatre-goers alike.

What sets this monograph apart from others devoted to this key playwright are its many illuminating, nuanced, surprising ‘framings’ of Friel’s plays by other plays from the Irish, English, and European stageMurray’s most provocative insights arise from his imaginative juxtapositions, for example, of Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Miller’s Death of a Salesman … Murray’s fluency with theater history beyond the twentieth-century Irish stage gives his survey its fl[a]vor and edge … I would include [The Theatre of Brian Friel] … among the indispensable recent full-length appraisals of this seminal figure of the Irish stag. -- Brian W. Shaffer, Rhodes College * English Literature in Transition *
Murray’s strength is in his citation of those individual performances of the plays which he has witnessed over the years, and it is rarer to find the opening night of a Friel play which he did not attend than one he did. -- Feargal Whelan * New Theatre Quarterly *
Creative, fertile and fresh. … Murray’s kind of criticism is best described as classical, representing an exemplary standard within a basically traditional and long-established form or style. As a generalist analysis of Friel’s plays and their impact on contemporary theatre, this is the best, most extensive and most up-to-date study so far. -- Ulf Dantanus, UK * Nordic Irish Studies *
There are new insights here for those who know Friel’s plays well but a sound introduction for others who may be coming to him for the first time. By its combination of a chronological and thematic approach, it contrives to avoid a pedestrian plod through the life and works, its master argument capacious enough to include the many different ways Friel has adapted tradition to the conditions of modernity. The Friel that emerges from Murray’s book is a playwright of ideas, a literary playwright for whom language is all important, whose career has been dedicated to the development of an “aesthetic of modern tragedy”. -- Nicholas Grene, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland * Breac *
As Murray ably demonstrates, there is a great deal left to be said about this most elusive - and allusive - of playwrights ... [His] book-length critique is supplemented and enriched by a final section, 'Critical Perspectives', in which other leading scholars of Irish theatre ... offer alternative readings of Friel's drama. * Notes and Queries *

Christopher Murray is Emeritus Professor of English and Drama at University College, Dublin, where he was the founder member and first director of the UCD Drama Centre offering MA and PhD in Modern Drama Studies. His many publications include Twentieth-Century Irish Drama: Mirror up to Nation. He is chair of the board of directors of the Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781408157343
ISBN 10	1408157349
Title	The Theatre of Brian Friel
Author	Christopher Murray
Series	Critical Companions
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2014-04-24
Number of pages	312
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.