On the Town: Some were moved to tears by the power of Brian Friel's new play, The Home Place, which had its world premiére at the Gate Theatre in Dublin this week.
"He's done it again. It's an extraordinary, extraordinary piece. It's wonderful to see him at the top of his form again. I was moved to tears," said poet Micheal O'Siadhail afterwards. "To have you cry for the planter! You can't do much more. To take the person who is pathetic and have you cry for him is very, very beautiful - and you have to cry for him."
"He always gets the bit of guts and heart into it," said Peter McDonnell, a solicitor from Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, who was there with his wife, Helen. McDonnell's sister, Anne Brennan, was also there with her husband, Paddy.
Playwright Sebastian Barry was equally moved. "This is one of his pristine and finest works . . . I think it's time to put the hands down on the ground [in submission to Friel's mastery]," he said.
"It's like getting a new play from Chekhov," said Michael Colgan, the theatre's director. "You just know it's going to be around for a long time."
Pianist John O'Conor, who is currently performing the complete set of Beethoven's piano sonatas over eight recitals at the National Concert Hall, was there with his wife, Mary, to see their son, Hugh, play the part of David Gore.
"It doesn't leave you," said Mary O'Connor, from Foxrock, who was with her daughter, actor Valerie O'Connor. "There's great depth and soul in it."
Others in the audience included Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney; playwrights Thomas Kilroy, Bernard Farrell, Gerard Mannix Flynn and Conor McPherson; producer John McColgan; and actors Stephen Rea, Lise-Ann McLaughlin and Claudia Carroll.
The Home Place, by Brian Friel, runs at the Gate Theatre until March 26th