Molly Sweeney, written in 1994 by the great Irish playwright, Brian Friel, is his second using long monologues to tell his story. In his first, The Faith Healer, the monologues were long and complete in themselves - each giving one of the three characters' impression of events. In Molly Sweeney, the monologues are shorter, moving backwards and forwards in relative time to achieve the same effect. The story, inspired by Oliver Sack's case history "To See and Not See and the long, strange tradition of such case histories" follows the blind Molly Sweeney from darkness to light and back to darkness again. It is a play about "vision and knowledge ... about seeing and understanding", and, as always with Friel's work not just about people, but about Ireland itself.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind

Learning to see is not like learning a new language.
It's like learning language for the first time.