Hard-hitting only begins to suggest the emotional power packed into the Irish Repertory Theatre production of Brian Friel’s 1994 Molly Sweeney, the last of the company’s 2023-24 Friel Project, which has already included strong revivals of his Translations, Aristocrats, and Philadelphia, Here I Come.
The truth is that I all but staggered out of the auditorium when Michael Gottlieb’s final lights momentarily flashed ultra-brightly on Sarah Sweet, as the title character, and then cut to a seemingly fatal black. I was that crushed, that sucker-punched, that gobsmacked by what had just unfolded.
Written with a masterful sense of nuance, Friel introduces three characters — Molly, who has had only the barest grasp on sight since she was 10 months old, her husband Frank (John Keating), and ophthalmologist surgeon Mr. Rice (Rufus Collins).
[Read Sandy MacDonald’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The characters never address each other directly. They sit side by side in three chairs before three windows (Charlie Corcoran’s ideal set) as they alternate sometimes lengthy, sometimes brief monologues. In time, the separation is revealed as a metaphor for how separate — no matter how seemingly intimate — people can be. (Yes, Friel fans, their disposition is reminiscent of his Faith Healer three-hander.)
Though Molly has been able to see light and even the direction from which it apparently emanates as well as the shape of objects held before her, she is considered blind. It’s a condition that out-of-work, enthusiastic Frank would like to amend, no matter how unlikely that will be — a condition, by the way, with which Molly is content.
She’s adjusted herself to the minimal sight she has. She’s created a thoroughly welcome world in which she lives contentedly. Corcoran has flowers in a vase sitting on the window ledge behind her to reflect speeches she has about recognizing flowers by their feel and smell, a practice her father developed in her.
Nonetheless, Frank — among whose interests are Iranian goats — insists on improving things for Molly and so contacts Mr. Rice. At 32, he sees the challenge as a way to make medical history as well as a way to help him recover from the pain of his wife’s recently leaving him for a New York ophthalmologist colleague.
Written in two acts, Friel’s first act covers the conflicting action right up to the first of Mr. Rice’s surgeries. Molly undergoes them despite feeling she’s doing so less as her choice, more as a result of Frank’s and Mr. Rice’s importuning. The second act begins with the removal of Molly’s bandages, when, as predicted, she regains a limited but meaningful ability to see.
Detailing more specifics of a story that eventually attains what could be described as the depths of tragic heights would give away too much of Friel’s purpose. It is fair, however, to say that what transpires is close to irreparable for Molly in losing the life she knew and had come to love.
It’s the same for Frank thinking that living in Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia, as he points out) would be preferable to (the playwright’s fictional) Ballybeg in County Donegal. It’s more of the same for Mr. Rice, who’s giving in to an early mid-life crisis. (Incidentally, Gareth in Philadelphia, Here I Come thinks the titular Pennsylvania metropolis would be a better home than, again, County Donegal’s Ballybeg.)
On the other hand, it’s properly fair to report that Friel is offering a commanding dissertation on the qualities of sight. More than that, it’s a commentary on the breadth of sight, on its many interpretations. It’s about insight and foresight, second sight, blindsight and any other sight that comes to mind. It’s about the perhaps infinite attributes of insight — or lack of it — into ourselves and, possibly even more so, into others.
There’s another level on which Molly Sweeney operates: the interplay between men and women. Friel makes it plain that what becomes Molly’s severely compromised fate stems from Frank’s and Mr. Rice’s determination that they know what’s best for her. That conviction is compounded by their own weaknesses, their own emotional needs. Molly is implicated, too, for being unaware of her right as a woman to raise ultimately successful objections. (Is there a deliberate 2024 echo here in today’s stateside women’s fight for abortion rights?)
Friel’s authorial triumph is how slowly he exposes his more profound purpose. Audiences likely follow the first act in sympathy with Molly, hoping the best for her, returning for the second act wanting to learn she now sees in the most familiar definition of the verb.
It’s then that Friel unleashes his true intent, capturing observers in his acceleratingly implicating vortex. Might it be that some spectators will rankle at being so devilishly taken in? Being forced so devastatingly to take a hard look at their shortsightedness, their own belief that their insight is paramount?
Enhancing Friel’s writing is Charlotte Moore’s intricate direction of Street, Keating, and Collins. Calling their performances three-dimensional falls short. Four-dimensional is closer in that they’re in tandem with the author’s astounding four-dimensional plot and theme structure.
A last question: When Molly regains her sight, she quickly identifies a nearby object as white. How does she know what white looks like? Surely, she’s never had anyone get across colors? Is that actually possible? Just asking.
Molly Sweeney opened May 23, 2024, at the Irish Repertory Theatre and runs through June 30. Tickets and information: irishrep.org
