Irish playwright Brian Friel (1929-2015), whose list of awards stretches from here to way over there, was not only prolific (somewhere over 30 plays) but also profound. Though never showy. More often than not, he remained commandingly quiet when speaking from the stage.
This is certainly true of Molly Sweeney, which—speaking of citations—was handed the 1996 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play and is now revived by the Keen Company. Most significantly, it’s giving indelible proof of that award-winning quality.
Three figures sit in white chairs in front of a mild Ballybeg sky on set designer Steven Kemp’s lawn. Molly Sweeney (Pamela Sabaugh) occupies the middle seat and is flanked on her right by ophthalmologist Mr. Rice (Paul O’Brien) and on her left by the man who loves her, Frank Sweeney (Tommy Schrider).
Molly is the first to speak—and the first to deliver a monologue. Typical of many Friel works, Molly Sweeney is made up of monologues. (At these, Friel has evidently had a strong influence on fellow countryman Conor McPherson, who has followed him as a current first-rate Irish dramatist.)
Molly begins by explaining that she had her sight for the first years of her life but then lost it. All that’s left her is the ability to tell the difference between light and dark as well as the ability to indicate from which direction the light is coming. From then on, her loving, patient father instructed her about the objects of the world—the feel, the smell, the color. As a result, she created a world in her mind that gave her great enjoyment. She was able to learn very little from her mother, who was often away from home, institutionalized.
Molly also mentions that the idea of regaining her sight is appealing to her, a possibility further explained by Mr. Rice, whose medical career has hit a snag he hopes to overcome through the surgery he’ll undertake restoring Molly’s sight, He plans operations on both eyes. Mr. Rise also reports that when he first met Molly’s husband Frank, he had the impression that Molly’s seeing was for Frank a latest “cause.”
Friel makes it his task to follow how the ensuing procedures go and how several other revelations accrue as, in two acts, Molly undergoes the delicate procedures. He’s interested in how the results affect not only Molly but also Mr. Rice and Frank.
Perhaps it’s not an unfair spoiler to say that Molly does regain her eyesight. Going further into the ramifications may, however, give too much away. Nevertheless, one of the eventual outcomes is a condition known as “blindsight.” Defined in 1974 by British psychologist Lawrence Weiskrantz, it’s a condition where a person actually sees but has no cognizance of seeing.
Molly, having initially enjoyed her restored vision—at least to some extent—begins to regret losing the inner world she’d created for herself. Her response to that loss as well as the responses Mr. Rice and Frank manifest are the second-act context and content of Friel’s tough-minded, deeply empathetic Molly Sweeney.
It may be needless to say that while “blindsight” is a real condition and Molly is caught in it, the condition also works as an incisive metaphor. What Mr. Rice and Frank see and don’t see, what they hope to see and don’t see are conveyed in their monologues as solidly as are Molly’s reactions to her concrete experiences. Their behavior over the year or so during which Molly Sweeney takes place alters almost as much as what changes Molly undergoes.
Moreover, Friel transmits to the audience the potential for what we all see on a daily basis but somehow don’t absorb. In delivering the implicit message, he packs a strong theatrical wallop. Whether deliberately or not, Friel’s Molly Sweeney works as an ancillary reply to William Shakespeare’s King Lear, where, in Gloucester’s instance, insight is only gained in the eventual absence of sight.
Keeping the atmosphere ever-so-subdued, director and Keen Company artistic director Jonathan Silverstein has the actors following his lead. As Molly goes through the pre-surgery and recovery stages, Sabaugh is endlessly touching. (Sabaugh herself deals with “low vision.”) With ease she navigates a path from enthusiasm to apprehension to surprise to disappointment to acceptance.
As a physician looking to rectify his own setbacks, O’Brien covers much ground, including a near breakdown at observing his apparent success devolve into a psychological failure. Schrider does well as a man for whom causes are sustenance, perhaps the most satisfying cause being his last announced undertaking.
Molly Sweeney is so carefully understated as it proceeds on its determined course that even viewers with 20/20 eyesight may not notice that its encouragement to acknowledge “blindsight” includes a moving one that whispers, “See this play about sight and its many underappreciated manifestations. For your own good, take its message in.”
Molly Sweeney opened October 23, 2019, at Theatre Row and runs through November 16. Tickets and information: keencompany.org
