The Failed Words of Brian Friel

Abstract

I want to begin by talking about words and how they are necessary on the page in order to succeed on the stage. In the summer of 1994 Redmond O'Hanlon, a lecturer at University College, Dublin, joined the chorus of Irish critics who had attacked the Abbey Theatre's recent revival of The Doctor's Dilemma as an illustration of how the excessively "wordy" Bernard Shaw might be more of a bore than a genius in the theatre. "Words, words, words," Dr. O'Hanlon was reported as saying in the Irish Times of 20 July 1994 when asked why Shaw's supposedly dated plays have remained a valid subject for academic study if not for stage production: "Traditionally," he said, "academics find it very hard to deal with a text as a performance text. They prefer to approach it as a literary text and therefore Shaw has plenty for them. They are terrified of the notion that a play text is a very incomplete thing, and that it's just a scenario for a performance. Most academics can't deal with that. They prefer words that can stand up on their own, far away from the stage."

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