I decided to read Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney just before I went to see the Irish Repertory Theatre’s recent production. This is not something I always do. Often, of course, I would have read or sometimes even have seen a classic play, but usually not immediately before seeing it again. I was concerned that my emotional response wouldn’t be as immediate with the lines so fresh in my mind. Molly Sweeney is a young woman, blind for forty years, just about to experience an operation that would give her sight. It is a profoundly emotional time in Molly’s life and in her husband, Frank’s, life.
I read the play knowing John Millington Synge’s The Well of the Saints (1905), on a similar theme, and also knowing that Friel had been moved by Oliver Sacks’s “To See and Not to See,” which is about sight and knowledge. All of these influences were here, but they were dwarfed by the power of actors Simone Kirby (Molly), Jonathan Hogan (Dr. Rice), and Ciaran O’Reilly (Frank). Molly’s first speech caught me immediately. Kirby’s delivery of the lines was so direct, so innocent, so filled with the ambiguity of fear and joy that I felt a rush of emotion. If anything, reading the play immediately before seeing it intensified my pleasure and my response—even as I anticipated the lines I remembered best.
Everything depends on how the actors deliver their lines because this is a play with little overt action. I’m sure some theatergoers might doubt that it is a drama at all. In the tradition of Friel’s own Faith Healer, the actors stand and speak one after the other to the audience, telling them their very distinct view of the same story. This may seem undramatic—and in the hands of a lesser writer it almost certainly would be. But Molly Sweeney is riveting in part because the story is surprising and the actors are moving. Storytelling in Molly Sweeney, especially from three points of view, constitutes significant drama.
Being able to bring your students to the theater after reading a play is usually regarded as a good idea. I can see the reasoning behind it, and in this case I wasn’t sorry I’d read before, but I don’t always feel it’s the best idea. What do you think? What have your experiences been, taking students to the theater just after reading a play?