Festival of Friel - Molly Sweeney

Walking into “The Studio” the smaller, less traditional theatre at Leicester’s Curve, I was greeted by a scene of an old, rumble down house. Full of detail, from the marks on the walls which once hung pictures to the dust which covered the old wardrobe; this was to be the setting for the whole show. In one corner was a giant mirror and dressing table, smothered in dust and smoke. In another was an old arm chair, with coffee, tea and whisky stains galore. High above a window of frost glass poured a realistic shadow over the whole set.

However, as good as the set was, it was the acting and the story we had all come to see. Our expectations were high. This was a play by Brian Friel, an internationally famous Irish playwright. He had written major successes such as Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Dancing at Lughnasa both which have been adapted as films. Another one of his most famous plays Translations had been performed earlier that day at the Curve to great acclaim.

Molly Sweeney, the story of a blind Irish girl, is performed in a series of monologues by three actors cross-cutted together to tell the story. That does mean there is little action in the play but that doesn’t matter. The performance by the three actors, particularly Simone Kirby as Molly and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Frank, was so amazing that it could have been performed in a bus shelter in Swindon and we could have still know who the characters were, where it was set and the lives the characters lived. What was so amazing about Tom Vaughan-Lawlor is that he was a very late addition to the company, having had to replace the previously casted Frank due to a family death. Despite using his script abit in the second act, he still carried on and performed the excitable and “fascinating” Frank Sweeney. Along side Kirby and Lawlor was Des McAleer as Mr Rice, Molly’s eye surgeon who’s had a hard life, including being cheated on by his wife and his best friend. He later performs an operation on Molly to make her see again, but this ultimately makes her go mad and start seeing things, including the dead.

And it’s when she starts going mad, during the last monologue, that we see the magic of Kirby’s acting and Friel writing. And I think after we hear those last few words, of a Molly trapped in her bed unable to think straight, that even the hardest of hearts would shed a tear.

- Nathan

The Festival of Friel runs at Curve, Leicester until 10th December. Click here for further details.