Has a play ever been revived with more alarming frequency than Hedda Gabler (1890)? As Ibsen’s ghost was heard protesting in Kristiania, Norway, only last weekend: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
Hedda Gabler is apparently the only play that Henrik Ibsen ever wrote. While the derided revival Read More
It’s a pity that Brian Friel’s wonderful Translations at the Biltmore Theatre is talked about as particularly “relevant” to the Iraq War. Relevance has become a nagging mantra of our times, as if topicality counts for everything. Mr. Friel, Ireland’s greatest dramatist, is a poet whose enduring plays aren’t overtly political. They point to the Read More
I love Brian Friel’s heart and soul, suffering though they are. Mr. Friel stands above the new generation of Irish dramatists, Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson, and you have only to see his haunting and wonderful Faith Healer to understand why.
There is—to borrow a word from Mr. Friel about his own tortured hero—a magnificence Read More
Everyman’s Uncle Throws
Temper Tantrum in Chekhov’s Vanya
Chekhov is such a lovely writer, isn’t he? Is there anyone who “gets” us better? Is there any dramatist who better reveals commonplace, laughable life? With all his plays, and particularly Uncle Vanya , tears and laughter are always close, even inseparable. It is within Chekhov’s Read More
The new wave of young Irish dramatists may be as talented as many people believe, including the young Irish dramatists themselves. But reports that Conor McPherson’s The Weir is a great play–pause for a second at the accolade great –would compel us to reconsider the entire Irish heritage of J.M. Synge and William Butler Yeats, Read More
