The Irish Studies Program at Fairfield University will celebrate the fifth anniversary of its Irish in Film Series with six free screenings of plays by acclaimed Anglo-Irish playwright John Millington Synge. The films are all live, stage productions directed by Gary Hynes of the Druid Theatre Company, Galway, Ireland.
The film series is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served.
All films, produced in Dublin in 2007, will be screened in the DiMenna-Nyselius Library multimedia room on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., except the first film, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. The film series is part of Fairfield's Arts & Minds season of cultural and intellectual programming.
The festival opens on Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 7:30 p.m. with "The Playboy of the Western World" (1907), considered the definitive work of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Its first performances caused riots at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. Christy Mahon (Aaron Monaghan), a timid young farmer who appears one night at a remote pub, confesses that he's wanted for killing his father. Instead of being appalled, the locals are impressed by Christy's "hanging crime," and he is given shelter at the pub, where he transforms himself into a poet-hero. Nels Pearson, Ph.D., director of Irish Studies and film series' host, will introduce the film.
For more information, contact Marion White, Irish Studies Program, at (203) 254-4000, ext. 3021 or mwhite@fairfield.edu.