Guthrie Theater

Brian Friel was born in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland in 1929. Originally intending to enter the priesthood, he studied at St. Patrick's College seminary in Maynooth from 1946 to 1948. But his vocational plans changed, and beginning in 1950 he spent a decade as a school teacher in Londonderry. In 1954 he married Anne Morrison; together they have had five children.

Friel began his literary career as a short story writer, and by 1960 his work was regularly published by The New Yorker. By 1963 he had two plays produced on Irish radio and three staged in Belfast in Dublin. Soon he earned the attention of Sir Tyrone Guthrie and an invitation to spend several months at the Guthrie Theater to watch the company prepare and open its first season. He has recalled those days more than once and this excerpt is from a radio interview broadcast by the BBC Northern Ireland Home Service in 1971:

What did I do in Minneapolis?... For a few weeks I managed to make myself almost invisible. I slipped into the building with the workmen in the morning and slipped out with the actors at night. But eventually [the] stage-door man - appropriately called Check - stopped me and demanded to know my business. And just as I was stammering a garbled explanation, one of the actors volunteered, "He's OK, Chuck; he's an observer." And that fortuitous christening instantly gave me not only an identity, but a dignity.

I moved from the gloom of the back row down to the orchestra. People began to nod at me. It was all very gratifying. But there were some disadvantages. Up to this I could crouch in the dark and scratch and grunt and make faces and mutter to myself. But now I had to sit in smart attention and gaze at the stage for hours before the muscles of my face would surrender the intelligent, alert look I had assumed all day. Observers may contribute little to the life of the theatre, but they work harder than anyone else I know."

On the heels of that visit Friel wrote Philadelphia, Here I Come!, his first major success. In a letter to Joe Dowling before the Guthrie's 1996 production of the play, Friel commented, "I went home on a Guthrie high and wrote the play." Over the course of the next two decades he wrote 20 more plays, including Dancing at Lughnasa, Translations, Molly Sweeney and Aristocrats, as well as various translations and adaptations.

Friel's many and varied awards include a place in the Irish Academy of Letters as well as an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the National University of Ireland. He celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this year. 

Friel Productions at the Guthrie

1996-1997 Season
Phildalephia, Here I Come! Directed by Joe Dowling

1998-1999 Season
Molly Sweeney. Directed by Joe Dowling
A Month in the Country, after Ivan Turgenev. Directed by Mark Brokaw

2000-2001 Season
Tour of Molly Sweeney. Directed by Joe Dowling

2007-2008 Season
The American premiere of The Home Place. Directed by Joe Dowling

2009-2010 Season
Faith Healer. Directed by Joe Dowling. Associate director Benjamin McGovern

Photos by Michal Daniel

Brian Friel as Friend and Inspiration

The following is excerpted from Joe Dowling's "Dialogues" in the The Home Place program (Fall 2007).

"I have been directing Brian Friel plays for 30 years. In 1977, as a young director, I was invited to do the world premiere production of his play Living Quarters at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Since seeing his early masterpiece Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1964, I had been a devotee of his work, and the invitation to actually work with him was a dream come true for me. In the intervening years, I have directed many productions of his work, both new plays and revivals, in Ireland, Britain and in the United States.