“Life is a comedy to those who think; a tragedy to those who feel.”
This famous observation could almost summarise the atmosphere or Brian Friel’s Aristocrats, where – between the sarcastic commentary of Eamon, the son-in-law, the passionate piano playing of young Claire and the forensic interrogation of a visiting historian – sadness, comedy and music intermingle freely.
Aristocrats belongs with a cluster of remarkable works (including Faith Healer and Translations) that Brian Friel produced in the late ‘seventies. Of these, Aristocrats is the closest in style and tone to Friel’s beloved Chekhov for it conjures up an image of an Irish Catholic Big House in decline, refusing to face familial and historical change. The Northern Troubles may rumble in the background but here in the Big House there is Chopin, played by the youngest daughter as if her life depended on it, and counterpointed with the sarcastic commentary of Eamon, her brother-in-law. Under the scrutiny of a visiting historian, the myths that have sustained the family for so long begin to crumble but in Aristocrats, as in Chekhov, comedy and sadness mingle and collide, and the elegiac tone is shot through with the comic foibles of the human.
Full Cast:
Willie Diver - Mike Cronin
Tam Hoffnung - Ruben Keane
Uncle George - John McCaffrey
Casimir - Charlie Crowley
Alice - Denise O’Carroll
Eamon - Eric Browne
Claire - Rosemarie O’Byrne
Judith - Ber Madden
Father - John McCaffrey
Anna’s Voice - Jennifer O’Shea
