Molly Sweeney

It tells the story of its title character, Molly, a woman blind since infancy who undergoes an operation to try to restore her sight.

This play is about a blind woman in Ballybeg who constructed for herself an independent life rich in friendships and sensual fulfillment, and her ill-fated encounter with two men who destroy it and cause her madness: Frank, the man she marries who becomes convinced that she can only be complete when her vision is restored, and Mr. Rice, a once-renowned eye surgeon who uses Molly to restore his career.

In a note in the programme of the 1996 Broadway production, Friel says that the story was inspired in part by Oliver Sacks's essay "To See and Not See".

It was directed by Friel and featured Catherine Byrne as Molly, Mark Lambert as Frank Sweeney, and T. P. McKenna as Mr. Rice.

[2] The play was revived at the Print Room theatre in west London in 2013, with Dorothy Duffy starring as Molly.