Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney is an exquisite story
from a masterful storyteller - a highly entertaining play that delivers laughs
while posing thoughtful questions that will stay with you for some time.
The story centers on the luminous
and joyful Molly (Jennifer Porter), who has been blind since infancy. Molly’s perpetually unemployed but ever
enthusiastic husband, Frank (William McDonough III) has undertaken, as his latest
hobby - in a string of foolhardy and failed hobbies - the restoration of
Molly’s sight. In his quest to accomplish this, he enlists the help of Mr. Rice
(Dana Packard), a once celebrated eye surgeon whose wrecked marriage has
brought him to the wilds of northwest Donegal, and for whom the operation on
Molly’s eyes offers not only a chance to restore his once brilliant career, but
his damaged self-esteem. As for Molly,
she is being offered the chance to have her sight restored. “What has she to
lose?” Mr. Rice muses as he agrees to perform the operation.
“Brian Friel’s beautiful and dazzling Molly Sweeney is one of those
marvelous onion plays…As you peel away each plump and juicy layer, another
layer emerges underneath and yet another…What a marvelous play this is! See it - wander in it and wonder at it.”– New
York Post
“Mr. Friel writes like a dream.” - New York Times
“Brian Friel’s writing has such vitality and warmth.” – London Sunday
Times