Tickets are on sale for Aristocrats at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York. the latest stage performance to showcase the work of renowned Irish playwright Brian Friel.
Irish Repertory Theatre, the award-winning Off-Broadway home for Irish and Irish-American drama in New York City, is proud to present Aristocrats by Brian Friel and directed by Charlotte Moore.
Set in Ballybeg Hall in County Donegal, Aristocrats chronicles the decaying home of District Justice O’Donnell, where the family congregates for a wedding. Often described as Brian Friel's Chekhovian masterpiece, this play examines the once-powerful aristocratic O'Donnell family in the days of their decline.
"It's about family, and everybody has been so closed in with their family over the past three years. I just find a wonderful connection between now and the Irish and the Russians, who have such family richness that I wanted to explore that again," says Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director.
Aristocrats was first performed in 1979 at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Ireland.
The performance schedule is as follows: Wednesdays at 2 pm & 7 pm; Thursdays at 7 pm; Fridays at 7 pm; Saturdays at 2 pm & 7 pm; Sundays at 3 pm.
Aristocrats marks the second mainstage installment of The Friel Project which is part of the Irish Repertory Theatre's 35th anniversary celebrations.
The project presents a retrospective of the work of Irish playwright Brian Friel and features three of Friel’s works set in Ballybeg, a fictional town in Donegal, Ireland: Translations, in an Irish Rep debut production, Aristocrats, and Philadelphia, Here I Come!.
The Friel Project will include selected concert readings from the playwright’s vast canon and additional planned events culminating in an exhibition in the Irish Repertory Gallery.
Speaking about the project, Ciarán O'Reilly, Producing Director at the Irish Repertory Theatre says, "If there was such a thing as a poet laureate of the Irish Rep, it would be Brian Friel. In so many of his plays, it’s about the departure from it and the need to break beyond it."
Who was Brian Friel?
Brian Friel was a dramatist and writer often referred to as the ‘Irish Chekhov’ for his plays exploring social and political life in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Throughout a career spanning more than sixty years, Friel examined the tangled relationships between nationality, history, and narrative, with large, intergenerational casts of characters. His work was influenced by his upbringing in the rural north of Ireland, with more than a dozen of Friel’s works set in the fictional Donegal town of Ballybeg (translating to “small town”).
Friel’s best-known work, Dancing at Lughnasa, premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 1990, and shortly thereafter transferred to the National Theatre in London, winning the Olivier Award for Play of the Year.
Dancing at Lughnasa ran for more than a year on Broadway and received three Tony Awards including Best Play. A film version was released in 1998 starring Meryl Streep and directed by Pat O’Connor.
Located in New York City, the Irish Repertory Theatre stages the works of Irish and Irish-American classic and contemporary playwrights, encouraging the development of new work focused on the Irish and Irish-American experience, and producing the work of other cultures interpreted through the lens of an Irish sensibility.
Aristocrats will run from January 21 until March 3, 2024, grab your tickets here. You can also follow Irish Repertory Theatre on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
