Contents:Introduction / Anthony Roche -- The early plays / Thomas Kilroy -- Surviving the 1960s : three plays by Brian Friel, 1968-1971 / Frank McGuinness -- Friel and the Northern Ireland "Troubles" play / Stephen Watt -- Family affairs : Friel's plays of the late 1970s / Anthony Roche -- Five ways of looking at Faith healer / Nicholas Grene -- Translations, the Field day debate and the re-imagining of Irish identity / Martine Pelletier -- Dancing at Lughnasa and the unfinished revolution / Helen Lojek -- The late plays / George O'Brien -- Friel's Irish Russia / Richard Pine -- Friel and performance history / Patrick Burke -- Friel's dramaturgy : the visual dimension / Richard Allen Cave -- Performativity, unruly bodies and gender in Brian Friel's drama / Anna McMullan -- Brian Friel as postcolonial playwright / Csilla Bertha