From Moscow to Ballybeg: Brian Friel’s Richly Metabiotic Relationship with Anton Chekhov
Year: 2012

The Irish playwright Brian Friel (1929-) has, on various occasions, been referred to as “the Irish Chekhov,” a claim ﬁ rst made convincingly and decisively by Richard Pine in his 1990 book, Brian Friel and Ireland’s Drama.1 The critical consensus on the imaginative affi nities between the two writers was strengthened as Friel went on to produce no fewer than three adaptations of Chekhov and a fascinating hybrid also related to Chekhov, Afterplay, all in the space of the four years between 1998 a