This beautiful and intimate work is filled with Friel’s characteristic poetic lilt and devilish humor. Friel has been hailed as the “Irish Chekhov” and is considered to be one of the greatest living English language playwrights. Written in 1968 and first presented in the U.S. at Lincoln Center in a production that featured Art Carney, Lovers is set in contemporary Ireland and tells the tales of two very different couples, both at the beginning of their romantic journeys together, yet each from very different perspectives and with very different outcomes.