Three Plays After presents an intriguing assembly of Brian Friel’s engagements with the work of Anton Chekhov.
The Bear, based on what the Russian writer himself called a ‘vaudeville’, or jest, exposes his characters’ barely disguised terrors and confused hopes and exhibits early signals of a deeply potent style. In The Yalta Game, elaborating a theme in ‘The Lady with the Lapdog’, two strangers almost convince each other that ‘disappointments are merely the postponement of the complete happiness to come’, while in Afterplay Brian Friel introduces a pair of characters twenty years after Chekhov first brought them to life in separate plays and fleshes the experiences they might have had and the relationship they might pursue.
As it glances at the shades of marriage and studies the appetites and sustenances of love, the book is a bonus — further marvels by a master craftsman and one of the finest playwrights in English.
