Brian Friel: Titles

This is a compilation of some of the titles submitted by centres in Summer 2009. It is not a definitive or prescriptive list of titles but it will give an idea as to different approaches to the task. Some student devised titles have not been listed as, while many have been successful due to the interest of the student, they may not be as successful if given to a class.

Titles with a similar focus, but with e.g. a different location or form of writing, have been subsumed into each other to keep a concise list of approaches.

Plays: Translations / Making History Flashback of Hugh O’Donnell remembering how he marched to Sligo to take part in the 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion, along with his friend Jimmy Jack Cassie. Hugh remembers that he decided to return to Ballybeg instead of going through with the rebellion. He feels a sense of shame that he did not take part in the uprising. Hugh is visited by a vision of Hugh O’Neill (from Making History). Create the scene.

Write a scene in which Yolland from Translations and Mabel from Making History engage in dialogue, discussing their lives.

Write a scene in which Lieutenant Yolland from Translations and Hugh O’Neill from Making History engage in dialogue and discuss their lives.

Write a scene in which Lieutenant Yolland from Translations and Mabel O’Neill from Making History engage in dialogue and discuss their lives.

Through having the characters of Hugh O’Donnell and Hugh O’Neill “meet”, develop a dialogue, exploring the connections and comparisons between the themes of identity, language , history which are evident in both plays.

Write a letter to Brian Friel explaining your misgivings with regard to the endings of both plays. In your letter offer alternative endings to both plays.

Write a series of correspondence between Maire and Mabel on the subject of crossing cultural boundaries.

Write a series of correspondence between Harry and Yolland.

Using appropriate style, write a scene where the ghosts of Hugh O’Donnell (Translations) and Hugh O’Neill (Making History) meet to discuss the failure of Gaelic leadership from 1600 to 1833.

Using an appropriate style, write two integrated and juxtaposing monologues that reflect Maire’s and Mabel’s views of the difficult relationships between English and Irish cultures and identities.

Write a scene where Lombard and Owen question Brian Friel about his view of History as a subjective and continuing process.

Plays: Translations / Faith Healer Write an additional scene to Translations fifteen years after the end of the play. The audience will find out through Manus’s monologue, what has happened to the characters and the community of Baile Beag. Manus will present his version of events as he sees it, in the same way as Teddy, Grace and Frank present their version of the truth in Faith Healer.

Plays: Making History / Freedom of the City The Battle of Kinsale – Write an additional scene involving the actual battle in real time with a historian, Dr Dodds, giving hard facts about the battle and its aftermath, using the technique of mixing present panic and a clinically cold recount of what happened from Friel’s ‘Freedom of the City.’

Plays: Dancing at Lughnasa / Translations Pretend you are Sarah from Translations. It is the end of the play and Sarah has failed in being able to say her name for Captain Lancey. Write a monologue explaining her memories of the events of the play. In particular focus on her interpretation of her relationship with Manus. Fulfil Manus’s prophesy when he said, “Soon you’ll be telling me all the secrets that have been in that head of yours all these years.” Give Sarah a voice, showing her opinion on the importance of communication as well as personal and national identity. Remember to: • use the form of ‘monologue’, the dramatic device used in Lughnasa; • explore the theme of memory in keeping with Michael’s statement in Lughnasa “…memory…owes nothing to fact”; • explore the theme of communication, a notable theme in Lughnasa, “…as if this…wordless ceremony was now the way to speak”; and, • explore the theme of identity as explored by Jack in Lughnasa “Jack must make his own distinctive search.”

Gerry and Manus are both characters that run away form their responsibilities. Pretend the two characters have met in a bar in Sligo. Write their conversation, where each explains their reasons for leaving Ballybeg, and defends their choices. Remember: • your script must be in the style of Friel; • you must show your understanding of each character and the situations from which they are running; and, • you must show your awareness of themes explored in both Lughnasa and Translations – change and memory.

Both Dancing at Lughnasa and Translations explore the theme of communication and the possibility of non-verbal communication –‘remember that words are signals, counters they are not important.” This exploration is probably most thorough in the characters of Fr. Jack and Owen. With this in mind, script a dialogue which details a meeting between the two characters in which they may discuss: • language • change/lack of change • colonisation and the British army

Write an additional scene in which the character of Kate Mundy from Dancing at Lughnasa teaches a class about the Anglicisation of place names in the local area. Plays: Dancing at Lughnasa / Philadelphia, Here I Come Imagine that Gar in ‘Philadelphia’ and Michael, ‘Lughnasa’ have been writing to one another. Write a correspondence between these characters where they allude to the similarities in their lives.

Imagine that Michael (now a grown man) and Gar (after returning from Philadelphia) meet one day in a pub in Ballybeg. Triggered by the glimpse of a blue boat and a bicycle they both become nostalgic and chat to one another. Write their conversation – echoing Friel’s dramatic technique, style and form.

Although contrastingly different in personality Friel has created two characters – that of Maggie from Lughansa and S.B. O’Donnell from Phildelphia – that are similar in their harbouring of painful memories and refusal to accept and address change. Imagine that Maggie and S.B. have been writing to each other. Write this correspondence between these characters, where they allude to these common characteristics.

Write an additional scene for Lughnasa at the point where Gerry returns for the first time to see Chris and Michael. Echo Friel’s dramatic style and form; and employ the dramatic technique used by Friel in ‘Philadelphia’ – a public/private character.

Memories occupy a prominent place in Friel’s dramatic work. Using the two main plays as a stimulus, compose a creative piece of prose based on reminiscences of two characters.

Use the private/public technique from Philadelphia to explore the character of Rose from Lughnasa and her relationship with her family and Danny Bradley. Write an additional scene for the play exploring the question of what happened to Rose when she disappeared with Danny.

Write a scene using the private/public technique and flashbacks from in Philadelphia to explore Chris or Agnes’s past.

“It’s just another place to live, Ballybeg, Belfast, America…England.” Write an additional scene for Philadelphia in which Gar and Agnes discuss leaving Ballybeg.

Write a scene between Kate Mundy and S.B. O’Donnell to explore the theme of escapism. Compare and contrast feelings, longing and the need to escape from the reality of life in Ballybeg.

Write a script in which Michael and Gar explore the advantages and disadvantages of leaving home.

Script a conversation between Maggie and Gar focusing on the theme of escapism.

Imagine you are a journalist who is writing an article about a person who is returning to Ballybeg and one who is leaving. The focus is on a sense of belonging. You arrange a meeting with Father Jack and Gar O’Donnell to discuss this for your article.

Imagine you are an actor who has recently had a part in each of the two plays. You have been asked to write an article for the Arts section of a newspaper on your experience now that Friel is in the news having turned eighty.

Plays: Dancing at Lughnasa / Making History A counselling session, giving a first-hand account of Gerry Evans shortly after his return from war. He talks about what he has seen and been asked to do. He also discusses his family, the regret he has for leaving them and how he longs to return to simpler times. He also discusses home, torn between Ireland and Wales. Gerry has researched Hugh O’Neill who has provided him with the inspiration to fight for a good cause. Gerry compares himself to O’Neill.

Tom is a young man and is a descendent of Hugh O’Neill. Aoife is a young single girl, who is a descendent of Michael Evans, and the Mundy family. Both are researching their genealogies, and find out about the past of their respective families. While researching in the library the pair begin a whirlwind romance. Aoife is unaware that Tom is married, and has a son. The action revolves around this relationship and the similarities between the lives of Chris Mundy in Aoife’s case, and Gerry Evans and Hugh O’Neill in Tom’s case.

Write a series of letters between the main female protagonists of the plays, Mabel and Christina. In the letters the two women give an emotional account about what is happening in their relationships with Hugh and Gerry. Themes running through the piece are religion, freedom and relationships.

Produce correspondence between Agnes and Mabel highlighting each character’s isolation within her own circumstances.

Plays: Translations / Philadelphia, Here I Come The protagonists share failed romantic relationships and strained relationships with their fathers. They have their own opinions of what went wrong and how they may have acted differently as well as other issues about which they feel strongly and which affected them in the plays. Write a monologue or dramatic scene to demonstrate these connections between Gar O’Donnell in Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Manus O’Donnell in Translations.

Failure of communication and ‘translation’ is a major theme in both Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Translations. Using this theme as a starting point, create an imaginative scene or scenes (a drama script) involving select characters from each play, presenting relationships and important connections between the plays.

Depict a radio broadcast for an arts programme discussing Friel’s work and connections between his plays, where the guest is an actor who has played the role of the main protagonist in both plays.

Gar and Manus meet in the back of a mail van as they leave Ballybeg, write the scene of their meeting.

It is 2001 and Ballybeg is prosperous with money from new holiday homes owned by outsiders. When the foundations are dug for a new bungalow in boggy ground a set of remains are found. An investigation ensues and they are found to be over a hundred years old. Members of the village are questioned about their knowledge of past events to see if they can throw any light on the identity of the “body”. Write the scene where Gar, now an old man, meets the researcher in the local pub and goes over what he knows about local history. Foreground important connections between the plays.