Aristocrats

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Play
Closed 13 October 2005

Lyttelton Theatre (National Theatre)
South Bank, London

Aristocrats is a play by Brian Friel. This production is directed and designed by Tom Cairns.

"Well worth its revival at the National" The Times

When I think of Ballybeg Hall it’s always like this: the sun shining; the doors and windows all open; the place filled with music.

A family gathers for a wedding at the ancestral home in County Donegal, its crumbling edifice testimony to an opulent way of life that’s all but finished. As the accusations and demands of their dying father ring out, his wayward, volatile offspring find consolation in reinventing wild and bohemian stories of the big house in its heyday.

Brian Friel's plays include The Home Place (currently being staged at London's Comedy Theatre) aswell as Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa.

"Piognant, tense and humourous... Aristocrats is a warmly humane and intelligent study of Irishness and unhappiness, class and family relations and fantasising" The Independent

The cast for this production of Aristocrats includes Sam Beazley, Brian Doherty, Dervla Kirwan, Peter McDonald, Gina McKee, T P McKenna, Marcella Plunkett and Andrew Scott.

Performance schedule:
Evenings at 7.30pm: Thu 1, Mon 12, Tue 13, Wed 14, Thu 15, Fri 16, Sat 17, Fri 30 September 2005, Sat 1, Mon 3, Tue 4, Wed 5, Thu 6, Fri 7, Sat 8, Mon 10, Tue 11, Wed 12 and Thu 13 October 2005
Matinees at 2.15pm: Wed 14, Sat 17 September 2005, Sat 1, Wed 5, Sat 8 and Wed 12 October 2005.

"Every congratulation to the National Theatre and to the director Tom Cairns for bringing this beautiful play back to the British stage" The Financial Times

"Aristocrats, Brian Friel's 1979 play, details the decline of a once grand Irish Catholic family, portraying a group on the verge of extinction. Normally, playwrights are praised for capturing the 'substance' or the 'solidity' of characters and locations. However, Tom Cairns's beguiling revival shows how Friel manages something more difficult: capturing people who are fading away, a country that resists definition. These are characters who have become ghosts in their own lives, as vulnerable to time, history and the elements as their decaying ancestral home." The Sunday Times

"A humane analysis of the flawed Irish temper and its propensity for romance" The Guardian

"Brian Friel's Aristocrats is about a family - Irish-Catholic gentry - who do not want to know who they are. The play has the definition and robust psychological health the family lacks. It is beautifully written: Irish Chekhov is only an approximate shorthand. I have never seen Aristocrats before (first performed in 1979) but am ready to bet that what it is getting, with Tom Cairns directing and designing, is the production of a lifetime. This is the National Theatre without stunts, relying on acting of outstanding quality. It is unmissably good." The Observer