“And so when I cast my mind back different kinds of memories offer themselves to me.”

Michael Evans’s closing monologue of Dancing at Lughnasa reached a new level of poignancy following the death of Brian Friel on Friday at the age of 86. Lovers of his work will summon up memories of the so-called ‘Irish Chekhov’, Northern Ireland’s greatest modern playwright, while others will remember the reluctant star, a quiet man devoted to his craft. For me, his stagecraft marks him out as a true great, a creator of exceptionally credible works. Set in rural Ireland, his plays embody that unique, undefinable concept of ‘Irishness’, but also address universal themes which transcend spatial and temporal settings and transport the audience into the realms of dream and memory. His often fatalist portrayal of Irish life, however, is offset by the warmth, humour and credibility of characters such as Madge in Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Aunt Maggie in Dancing at Lughnasa; individuals who stave off the boredom of their everyday existence with a laugh, a smile or a sharp quip. The wide thematic scope of his work would lead to international recognition, with the likes of Translations, Faith Healer and many others enjoying successful transfers to Broadway, and critical acclaim; he was the winner of multiple Tony Awards and an Olivier Award.

However, like the grounded individuals of his plays, Friel shied away from the limelight. As a boy, he attended St Columb’s College in Londonderry yet, unlike more effervescent alumni such as Seamus Heaney and John Hume, he rarely addressed the media and remained somewhat of a recluse despite his success and huge popularity at home and abroad. He was born near Omagh in County Tyrone and despite the impact of The Troubles on his hometown, such as the 1998 Omagh Bombing, his work rarely addressed politics. Whereas Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Plays used characters as devices to present diverse ideologies voiced during the Easter Rising, Friel’s work examines people not politics, delving into the human psyche and addressing themes such as language, memory and mythology.

This character analysis would be performed in a very specific setting. Fourteen of his plays are set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, derived from the Irish Baile Beag meaning ‘small town’, and it is in this insular, claustrophobic place where his characters slowly unravel. Their relationship with their home is a difficult one; swinging from great emotional attachment to a loathing of its restrictions, as is the case in Dancing at Lughnasa. In it, the tensions created by the insular existence of the Mundy sisters slowly build to a wild climax, with the famous frenzied dance scene enacted by all five sisters. Yet this dance acts only as a temporary release from their mundane existences and is soon brought to a halt. Having recently seen the Lyric Theatre’s production of the play in Belfast, I pondered my own relationship with my home. Although nowhere near as rural, the slower way of life and family traditions of my home in County Tyrone have a similarly magnetic quality to Ballybeg. Even though, the hectic life of a Cambridge undergrad couldn’t be more different from my childhood in Northern Ireland, I will always have a desire to return home. This is also the case for Michael and Father Jack, who leave Ballybeg for England and Africa respectively, to return years later. This demonstrates the importance of ‘home’ and the difficulties of escaping your roots; of the power of memory and nostalgia to leave us with us an uncomfortable longing for something which we often never truly appreciated the first time around.

This is because Friel’s concept of Irishness resides in finding small morsels of satisfaction within an often unsatisfactory existence. Other Irish playwrights such as Martin McDonagh and Samuel Beckett also play on a sense of dissatifaction – Waiting for Godot reposes on the principle of unfulfilment; Godot never bothers to show up, yet Friel’s work differs from theirs in that it reposes on his characters’ passion for life, despite their often compromised positions. The aspiration of Gar O’Donnell to leave Ballybeg for Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Here I Come! is presented through two characters: the Private and Public Gar. Their imagining of Philadelphia as an El Dorado launches the protagonists and the audience into the world of dream, a dream which is made ever more attractive by its unattainability. It is the dichotomy between the private Gar, who is removed from social constraints and talks only to the audience, and the public Gar, confronted with the reality of abandoning everything and everyone he knows, that drives the play. The final dilemma and doubt over whether Gar will leave or not has fascinated audiences and will no doubt do so for years to come. It is Friel’s ability to offer ‘the other’ as a tantalising, exotic prospect which draws us in, before we slowly question if we truly desire change; if reality, for all its constraints and blandness, is not more attractive than the unknown.

Following Friel’s death, it is the lines of Private and Public Gar who exclaim “‘It’s all over’... ‘And it’s all about to begin”’, which offer themselves to me. Aside from my personal appreciation of his work, the fact that actors such as Ralph Fiennes and John Hurt have expressed their desire to play his characters shows the huge esteem in which he is held. I can only hope that the Corpus production of Dancing at Lughnasa in December will do justice to the play and that, for all the difference between Ballybeg and Cambridge, students recognise the importance of Friel’s contribution to British and Irish drama and his status as a modern great.