Brian Friel

Plays Two:Dancing at LughnasaFathers and SonsMaking HistoryWonderful TennesseeMolly SweeneyIntroduced by Christopher Murray this second collection of Brian Friel''s plays includes some of his most acclaimed work for the stage.From the troubled family life of five sisters in 1930s Donegal that is the core of Dancing at Lughnasa (now a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep) to the current-day birthday celebration that is the major external event of Wonderful Tennessee Brian Friel demonstrates his emotional range and empathy for his characters. He evokes not simply the interior landscape of human beings trapped in their domestic situation but the wider landscape-interior and exterior-of which they are a part.