[page 155] The questionings, the questionings. . . They began modestly enough with the pompous struttings of a young man: Am I endowed with a unique and awesome gift?--my God, yes, I'm afraid so. And I suppose the other extreme was Am I a con man?--which of course was nonsense I think. And between those absurd exaggerations the possibilities were legion. . . . (T)hey persisted right to the end, those nagging, tormenting, maddening questions that rotted my life. When I refused to confront them, they ambushed me. And when they threatened to submerge me, I silenced them with whiskey.(9)

(A)s I walked I became possessed of a strange and trembling intimation: that the whole corporeal world--the cobbles, the trees, the sky, those four malign implements--somehow they had shed their physical reality and had become mere imaginings there was only myself and the wedding guests. And that intimation in turn gave way to a stronger sense: that even we had ceased to be physical and existed only in spirit, only in the need we had for each other. . . . And as I moved across the yard towards them and offered myself to them, then for the first time I had a simple and genuine sense of homecoming. Then for the first time there was no atrophying terror; and the maddening questions were silent. At long last I was renouncing chance.(11)

But there is one memory of that Lughnasa time that visits me most often; and what fascinates me about that memory is that it owes nothing to fact. In that memory atmosphere is more real than incident and everything is simultaneously actual and illusory. In that memory, too, the air is nostalgic with the music of the 30's. It drifts in from somewhere far away-a mirage of sound-a dream music that is both heard and imagined; that seems to be both itself and its own echo; a sound so alluring and so mesmeric that the afternoon is bewitched, maybe haunted, by it. And what is so strange about that memory is that everybody seems to be floating on those sweet sounds, moving rhythmically, languorously, in complete isolation; responding more to the mood of the music than it its beat. When I remember it, I think of it as dancing. Dancing with eyes half closed because to open them would break the spell. Dancing as if language had surrendered to the movement-as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary.(12)

FRANK

(T)here must be some explanation, mustn't there? The mystery offends--so the mystery has to be extracted. (Points to the island.) They had their own way of dealing with it: they embraced it all--everything. Yes, yes, yes, they said; why bloody not? A rage for the absolute, Terry--that's what they had. And because their acceptance was so comprehensive, so open, so generous, maybe they were put in touch--what do you think--so intimately in touch that maybe, maybe they actually did see.

TERRY

In touch with what? See what?

FRANK

Whatever it is we desire but can't express. What is beyond language. The inexpressible. The ineffable. . . . And even if they were in touch, even if they actually did see, they couldn't have told us, could them, unless they had the speech of angels? Because there is no vocabulary for the experience. Because language stands baffled before all that and says of what it has attempted to say, 'No, no! That's not it at all! Not at all! Or maybe they did write it all down--without the benefit of words! That's the only way it could be written, isn't it? A book without words! . . . And if they accomplished that, they'd have written the last book ever written-and the most wonderful! And then, Terry, maybe life would cease.(13)

[page 158] Toward the play's end, Frank, like many other Friel protagonists, "sees" transcendence face to face:

Just as the last wisp of the veil was melting away, suddenly a dolphin rose up out of the sea. And for thirty seconds, maybe a minute, it danced for me. Like a fawn, a satyr; with its manic, leering face. Danced with a deliberate, controlled, exquisite abandon. Leaping, twisting tumbling, gyrating in wild and intricate contortions. And for that thirty seconds, maybe a minute, I could swear it never once touched the water--was free of it--had nothing to do with the water. A performance--that's what it was. A performance so considered, so aware, that you knew it knew it was being witnessed, wanted to be witnessed. Thrilling; and wonderful; and at the same time--I don't know why--at the same time. . . with that manic, leering face. . . somehow very disturbing.(14)

Finally, in Molly Sweeney Friel creates a character who, though functionally blind from birth (only able to glimpse "a little"), experiences a oneness with creation.

MOLLY

Oh, I can't tell you the joy I got from swimming. I used to think--and I know this sounds silly--but I really did believe I got more pleasure, more delight, from swimming than sighted people can ever get. Just offering yourself to the experience--every pore open and eager for that world of pure sensation, of sensation alone-sensation that could not have been enhanced by sight--experience that existed only by touch and feel; and moving swiftly and rhythmically through that enfolding world; and the sense of such assurance, such liberation, such concordance with it. . .(15)

MOLLY

I think I see nothing at all now. But I'm not absolutely sore of that. Anyhow my borderline country is where I live now. I'm at home there. Well . . . at ease there. It certainly doesn't worry me anymore that what I think I see may be fantasy, or indeed what I take to be imagined may very well be real-what's Frank's term?-external reality. Real-imagined-fact-fiction-fantasy-reality-there it seems to be. And it seems to be all right. And why should I question any of it anymore?(16)

---

Endnotes

1. Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1956) 153.
2. O'Neill, 153.
3. Matt Wolff, "Epiphany's Threshold," American Theatre (April 1994) 14-15.
4. O'Neill, 154.
5. Brian Friel, The Enemy Within (Newark, Delaware: Proscenium Press, 1975) 63.
6. Brian Friel, Philadelphia, Here I Come! (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1965) 11-12.
7. Friel, Philadelphia, 110.
8. Brian Friel, Crystal and Fox and The Mundy Scheme (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969) 102-103.
9. Brian Friel, Faith Healer, in Selected Plays of Brian Friel (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1984) 334.
10. Friel, Faith Healer, 336.
11. Friel, Faith Healer, 375-376.
12. Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990) 71.
13. Brian Friel, Wonderful Tennessee (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993) 40-41.
14. Brian Friel, Wonderful Tennessee,
15. Brian Friel, Molly Sweeney (New York: Penguin Books (Plume), 1994) 15.
16. Brian Friel, Molly Sweeney, 69-70.

[page 160]

Bibliography

Friel, Brian. Crystal and Fox and The Mundy Scheme. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969.

---. Dancing at Lughnasa. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990.

---. The Enemy Within. Newark, Delaware: Proscenium Press, 1975.

---. Faith Healer. Selected Plays of Brian Friel. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1984. 327-376.

---. Molly Sweeney. New York: Penguin Books (Plume), 1994.

---. Philadelphia, Here I Come! London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1965.

---. Wonderful Tennessee. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993.

O'Neill, Eugene. Long Day's Journey into Night. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1956.

Wolff, Matt. "Epiphany's Threshold." American Theatre April 1994. 12-17.