Brian Friel: two recent "translations". The London Vertigo and A Month in the Country

The concept of 'translation' has for long been central to Friel's art. His two latest 'translations' are The London Vertigo (1990), a version of Charles Macklin's The True-born Irishman (1761) and A Month in the Country (1992), a version of Turgenev's play. This essay offers a close analysis of Friel's latest drama, suggesting reasons for his attraction to the earlier plays, discussing the implications of the changes he has made to the original or earlier texts, and indicating ways in which these two latest plays represent a further development of his dramatic concerns