Entertainment

Friel festival kicks off in Donegal and Belfast

The first north/south Lughnasa International Friel Festival kicks off in Donegal today, before moving to Belfast next week. Brian Campbell previews the multi-arts festival and speaks to artistic director Sean Doran.

Dancing at Lughnasa premieres in Letterkenny and then runs at the Lyric in Belfast for a month
Dancing at Lughnasa premieres in Letterkenny and then runs at the Lyric in Belfast for a month Dancing at Lughnasa premieres in Letterkenny and then runs at the Lyric in Belfast for a month

BRIAN Friel has been described as `the greatest living Irish playwright’, so it’s only right that he has a festival devoted to him.

The first annual Lughnasa International Friel Festival gets under way today, with a host of plays, performances, talks, music and dance events taking place in Co Donegal and Belfast over the next 12 days.

It is billed as the first ever north/south annual arts festival and its artistic director is Sean Doran, the man behind the Happy Days Samuel Beckett Festival and A Wilde Weekend (in tribute to Oscar Wilde).

“We’re breaking the number one rule of a festival, which is `one place, one time’,” Doran told The Irish News at the festival launch. “It’s about celebrating Brian’s work, alongside Beckett and Oscar Wilde, and he has given us his warmth and his permission. In a cheeky way, we’ve actually taken the festival to his doorstep.”

Friel – whose works include Faith Healer, Translations and Philadelphia, Here I Come! – was born in Omagh in 1929 and lived in the north until the late sixties before moving to Greencastle in Co Donegal.

Doran’s reference to Friel’s doorstep relates to the festival’s production of Lovers starting in Magilligan in Derry and then transferring the cast and audience by ferry to Greencastle for the second part of the play.

Other events in the `Donegal: Welcome to Friel Country’ part of the festival (August 20 to 26) include talks by Fintan O’Toole, Mary Costello, Nuala O’Connor and Seamus Deane; morning readings in Loughadoon; concerts at St Conall’s Church in Glenties; a Tennessee Barbeque on Portnoo Pier; a rehearsed reading of The Enemy Within at Glencolmcille and The Gentle Island on Arranmore Island.

The `signature event’ of the whole festival is Dancing at Lughnasa, a Lyric Theatre production directed by Annabelle Comyn. It premieres at An Grianan in Letterkenny (today until Sunday) and then runs at the Lyric from August 26 to September 27.

The `Belfast, Here I Come!’ strand (August 26 to 31), includes a series called `Amongst Women’ - talks by names including Shami Chakrabarti, Kamila Shamsie, Mary Portas, Sandi Toksvig, Viv Albertine and Sinead Gleeson. Sean Doran said it is a particular `coup’ to have the acclaimed Canadian singer Feist booked in for a `music and conversation’ performance, hosted by Irish stage actress Lisa Dwan.

There will also be curated readings of The Enemy Within, The Gentle Island and Faith Healer; concerts of classical and Irish music, the `New Norths’ harvest food festival and Belfast’s first ever kite-flying festival – KiteTanica - at the Titanic Quarter on Saturday August 29 from 12 noon.

Dancing Cranes – a dance fest across Belfast showcasing the six dances in Dancing at Lughnasa – will be staged at the peace wall at Lanark Way, the Titanic slipways, the Lagan Weir, City Hall and – at 6.30am on August 29 for the early risers – at the Giant’s Ring.

“After Belfast we return to Glenties for the closing event, Faith Healer. The play is set on August 31 and that is our last day of the festival. You couldn’t make it up,” says Doran.

Brian Friel himself has said that the programme promises `a wild, imaginative, creative and riveting’ festival and Irish President Michael D Higgins and US President Bill Clinton have officially backed the event.

Festival funders include Belfast City Council, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, Donegal County Council and Toursim NI. Doran says he hopes it will become an annual fixture and warned against more arts funding cuts.

“I hope the funders see the potential of it. The arts in Northern Ireland have been entirely under-utilised; it is a very useful tool to signal to the world that there’s a normality and cohesion and joy here among the people against all else that happens.

“The problem is that our Anglo-Celtic culture sees the arts as a luxury and an `evening thrill’ and for the few and not the many and that’s a mistake.”

The Lughnasa International Friel Festival begins today and runs until August 31 in Belfast and Co Donegal. See LughnasaInternationalFrielFestival.com for more information.