Ambitious staging will celebrate centenary of 'the Irish Chekhov'

Plays by the acclaimed dramatist Brian Friel, who has been referred to as an "Irish Chekhov", have been performed in London, Dublin, on Broadway and elsewhere.

- Caroline Davies

Now an ambitious five-year project is bringing the works to "the terroir, the communities and the landscapes" that inspired them, culminating in all 29 running across County Donegal, County Derry and County Tyrone - places where Friel lived - for the centenary of his 1929 birth.

The playwright, who died in 2015, was notable in the pantheon of 20th-century Irish writers in that he lived in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland all his life, rooting his works in both.

FrielDays - a Homecoming will feature readings of his notable works, including Dancing at Lughnasa and Philadelphia Here I Come!, as well as those rarely staged, according to Seán Doran, the artistic director of Arts Over Borders, the organiser.

Community halls, churches, schools - "the landscape covered or uncovered" - will be stage and set.

"It's using landscape in a sort of psychogeography that helps trigger the plays in a more heightened way," said Doran.

A different village or town will be used for each "so it's county-wide, cross-border wide".

Each site "has to have the memories and the layering of past and connectivity to the texts".