It’s often been said that the problem with talking about the disabled is that they are defined by their dis-abilities rather than their abilities. The profundity of this perspective emerges in a moving narrative about a beautiful, blind Irishwoman who is given the gift of sight and how that changes her life and that of her husband and her doctor. In Irish Repertory Theatre’s Molly Sweeney, the last of the Friel Project offerings, prolific Irish playwright and author Brian Friel aptly illustrates how that gift is a mixed blessing.
The Naturalists
The three principal characters of Jaki McCarrick’s drama The Naturalists are refugees from a society that, in their view, damages the earth and is toxic to the human heart. The time is 2010; the place, the Republic of Ireland’s Border Region. Brothers Francis and Billy Sloane (John Keating and Tim Ruddy) have settled into middle age as small-time farmers, accustomed to being alone with each other and the glorious landscape around them.