The Creative Process

Jessie Keenan notes, 2

In this extract from Jessie Keenan’s project notes, Jessie is considering ideas that emerged from group discussions with Robbie Blake and Friel scholar Zosia Kuczyńska around selected archive materials from the Brian Friel Papers. Particularly prevalent are ideas around layers of reality and the relationship between dance and memory (including dance as a means of processing trauma). Reference is made on 6 March 2020 to what Friel refers to as an ‘anchor location’ in his notes towards his 1967 play Lovers: Winners (see MS 37,054/1).

Related Manuscript

What is vaguely forbidden?

In this note towards Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) dated 30 May 1989, Friel asks himself whether dance might be a means of expressing as-yet unidentified taboos.

The Creative Process

Robbie Blake's blue notebook, 6

In these pages from Robbie Blake’s project notebooks, Robbie makes notes from a discussion with Jessie Keenan and Zosia Kuczyńska in which Zosia shares some of her research around theatrical space.

Video

Mixed interview, extract 5

Zosia Kuczyńska, Jessie Keenan, and Robbie Blake talk about the origins of the project and the experience of collaboration.

Related Manuscript

Has the play its own reality?

In this note dated 28 May 1989, Brian Friel interrogates the reality of his own play, Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), in relation to its narrator.