Irish Mail on Sunday review Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Michael Moffat of the Irish Mail on Sunday also reviewed Philadelphia, Here I Come! Giving the review 4 stars and describing the production as "excellent", this is one in a long series of extremely positive reviews of the Production.

Sparkling take on Friel’s split-personality story
Philadelphia Here I Come!
On tour (see below) ****

IF BRIAN FRIEL'S earliest big success had been written as a film script, it would surely have had a sequel to follow the adventures in Philadelphia of the gormless young failure from Ballybeg. He is a failed student a failure in love, he's no great shakes as a businessman, yet he deludes himself with daydreams about his future in the US as a red-hot womaniser and tycoon. His father, SB O'Donnell, has at least built up a decent business and is a county councillor, yet SB is the villain of the play.

I have often thought it would be interesting to look into the mind of SB contemplating the incompetence of his big eejit of a son, in the same way that we get a look into Gar's mind.
In this excellent production, Sean Stewart as Gar Public and Marty Rea as Gar Private, get across the full measure of pathos and manic humour in the character, especially in the painful scene with Kathy and that deeply moving scene in which Gar and his father begin to communicate tentatively, but which ends as Gar's childhood boating memory is shattered.

The strong cast includes Conan Sweeney as the archetypal hard-man Ned, and Walter McMonagle as a not unsympathetic SB. Joan Sheehy is suitably creepy as Lizzy Sweeney but Enda Oates doesn't capture the seedy arrogance, and self-delusion of Master Boyle, who is so casually dismissive of Gar's limited abilities. The prayerful mutterings in the rosary scene distracted from Gar's fantasising but director Alan Stanford generally orches­trates everything at a fine pace and has bravely allowed dra­matic silences, which can be dangerous when playing to school audiences, although the only intrusive noise I heard was from a teacher's mobile.

The fine set by Eileen Diss is typical of the attention to detail that goes into these Second Age productions. •
Touring:
Everyman, Cork,Nov. 20-23:
Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire Nov 29 - Dec 1

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Sunday Business Post Review Philadelphia, Here I Come!

As mentioned in my previous post three reviews of the production Philadelphia, Here I Come! have been published today. Only two can be found on line, but I shall scan the Irish Mail on Sundays review and make it available here tomorrrow. Sara Keating's positively titled "New Raw Edges to Friel's play" can be found here...

Theatre: New raw edge to Friel’s play

11 November 2007 By Sara Keating

Philadelphia Here I Come! By Brian Friel, Nationwide tour

When it was first performed in 1964, Philadelphia Here I Come! was a radical piece of theatre. Not merely did it cut to the quick of an Irish society ravaged by mass emigration, but it put the psychological conflict engendered by an environment of economic and emotional poverty on the stage in the shape of two separate characters, Private Gar and Public Gar.Each character represents the divided mind of a man on the eve of his departure from his homeland. This sort of cultural schizophrenia became the dominant theme in the work of Irish writers for the next 20 years.
Ireland has changed profoundly since then. The Gar O’Donnells of the world have returned home to work with Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Chinese. Small towns have mushroomed.Communities have individualised. The church has lost its influence over the structure of people’s lives.So what could a play like Philadelphia Here I Come! possibly mean to an audience 43 years after it was written? Second Age Theatre’s solid production of Brian Friel’s play answers this question by performing Philadelphia as a period piece. Eileen Diss provides a naturalistic re-creation of the play’s small country kitchen set. Leonore McDonagh’s brown costumes err on the side of conservative 1960s fashion, while Sinead McKenna’s ochre lighting design evokes the sepia-toned sense of photographs fading and time gone by. In light of the play’s presence on the Leaving Certificate 2008 curriculum and the company’s status with school audiences, director Alan Stanford might be accused of playing it safe. But, with the play so embedded in a particular moment in Irish history, the backward glance effect was inevitable.In fact, it is to Stanford’s credit that he manages to find a raw edge to the play, largely through his performers. Marty Rea’s Private Gar, in particular, is superb as the repressed alter ego. With his manic energy, perfect mimicry and tense rangy physicality, Rea is like a tightly-wound metal coil about to be sprung. Sean Stewart, meanwhile, plays the 25-year-old Public Gar with spot-on sulky adolescence.Between them, they find a way to ensure that the play engages on an emotional as well as an historical level. But as Gar himself knows well, history is inescapable: ‘‘The longest way round is the fastest way home.”

Rating ***

Philadelphia Here I Come! continues at the Helix Theatre, Dublin (until November 16); Everyman Palace, Cork (November 20 & 22-23) and Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin (November 29–December 1)

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Sunday Independent - Review Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Emer O'Kelly of the Sunday Independent is one of the latest reviews to be published. To date all of the reviews have been uniformly good, and there is not much quarrel over the quality of this production of Philadelphia, Here I Come! ALAN STANFORD'S latest production for Second Age is Philadelphia, Here I Come! and a solid, competent, straightforward one it is. This is in no way pejorative, since the company's work is aimed mainly at schools audiences, and for teenagers seeing their first Friel come alive on stage, this is the way to do it.
Three of the cast re-create the roles they played in Adri­an Dunbar's production for ART NI several years ago, notably Marty Rea as Gar Private.
The others are Walter McMonagle as SB O'Donnell, and Conan Sweeney as Ned, the vainglorious "lad" from the town. All three have a fine edge, and Rea comes close to being superb as he postures, scampers, and mocks his own broken heart through Gar's last night in Ballybeg before he heads for Philadelphia and the doubtful joys of being the pampered and smothered son Aunt Lizzie never had.
It's 1964, and it will be a long time before he sees any­one again, whether it be the loving housekeeper Madge, or his faithless sweetheart Kate Doogan in her fine feathers as the local doctor's wife.
One of the joys of such a straightforward production is the recognition it gives to the exquisite writing, with every character drawn in fine lines that scream the agony of emo­tional nerve-ends stripped and put on display. And of course, the nerve ends between Gar and his father are a silent scream: "It's the silence that's the enemy," as Private franti­cally tells Public, urging him to the confidence of admitting need: for love, for memory, for hope. And no matter how often you have seen the play, the memories the father and son try to evoke, each living in a separate dappled past, break your heart anew.
Sean Stewart is an extremely good Public, and Aine Ni Mhuiri a good if somewhat pianissimo Madge. The cameos are almost uniformly good also, from Dearbhla McGuinness as Kate, David Heap as her father, Enda Oates as Master Boyle, John Olohan as the Canon, and Donncha Crowley and Dan Reardon as Uncle Con Sweeney and Ben Burton. Joan Sheehy, however, seems to be aiming for suppressed refinement as Aunt Lizzie when unrestrained vulgarity should be the order of the day. Roger Thomson and Andrew Adamson complete the cast, with set design by Eileen Diss and costumes by Leonore McDonagh: both are absolutely in tune.
Philadelphia, Here I Come! is at the Helix in Dublin and tours to the Everyman in Cork and the Pavilion, Dun Laoghaire.

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Irish Times Review by Peter Crawley

Peter Crawley reviewed the Show for the Irish Times on Tuesday night and it's clear he enjoyed the show read the full review here....

Philadelphia, Here I Come! The Helix, Dublin
It would be a bold experiment, and not one that an audience might voluntarily pay to witness, to have Brian Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come! performed without one essential character - Gar Private. This might strike you as complete folly, like staging Hamlet without the prince. Or, given that the onstage embodiment of an internal voice was such a bold experiment to begin with, a reactionary response coming several decades too late.
But, in his frenetic routine of commentaries, interjections, vibrant fantasies, comic accents and acerbic piss-takes, Gar Private is a rebel against silence. In fact, he fills that silence of his suffocating home in Ballybeg to such a degree that in Second Age's crisp, clear production of Friel's first play, it's easy to overlook the ache of silence that might split a young man in two, to feel those excruciating stretches.
Not that you would want Marty Rea, an actor of bracing versatility and striking focus, to take the night off. Dressed as neatly as a job applicant, his Gar Private is otherworldly, certainly, but no rampaging id. In fact, as Sean Stewart's Gar Public literally makes a song and dance about fleeing for America in the morning, it's his alter ego who comes across as the restraining influence. "You know what you're doing," warns Private, essentially summarising the play. "Collecting memories and images and impressions that are going to make you bloody miserable." Director Alan Stanford works this double act smoothly, although Private, who can sometimes seem to be more in charge of the play than his author, will always run off with the show. His sardonic, caustic wit - the humour of an imagination frustrated by routine - is one that may resonate with the company's intended school audiences.
There is, from the design to the performance, a great clarity in this production - even in the well-enunciated lines of Áine Ní Mhuirí's quietly tragic housekeeper Madge that might have worked better muttered - but not much that surprises. That may be the consequence of the play's strange journey from a radical to canonical work; less the fault of a faithful production than of the sanction of the syllabus.
There is no use pining for the formal shock of 1964, however, and watching the play today you see a revealing picture of Ireland then, from the penitential posture of the rosary to the empty promise of America with its air-conditioned cars and snowy Christmases.
There may be little embellishment in this production, but there is at least no barrier between us and the play. It still has the capacity to move, nowhere more so than in the quietly significant exchange between Walter McGonagle's tamped-down patriarch SB O'Donnell and John Olohan's absent Canon O'Byrne. Silence is the enemy, urges Private, and that's true enough; but Friel also knew that sometimes it can speak volumes.
Until Nov 16 at The Helix, then The Everyman Palace Nov 20-23, and the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire 29 Nov 29 - Dec 1
- Peter Crawley

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Packed Houses in Donegal

Over the last 5 days, the Second Age production of Philadelphia, has played to almost 2,000 people, and the overwhelming response is that this production is a hit..... The show opened to a predominantly school audience on Wednesday 17th October, and only 29 of the 393 seats at an Grianán were empty. The following day another Matinee with not one seat empty in the house, and that night, the first non-schools performance took place. With nearly every seat in the house taken at an Grianáns beautiful new auditorium, the atmosphere was fantastic. Every nuance and subtle play of humour was seized upon by the delightfully attentive audience and when the cast took their bow, and the Donegal audience gave them their first standing ovation.

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PHILADELPHIA Publicity Stills - Photos: Anthony Woods

Have a look at some of the great stills we got for Philadelphia, Here I Come! and let us know what you think of them....

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Philadelphia, Here I Come! VIDEO SHOOT

On Saturday last, we shot some great footage, and stills as promos for the production Philadelphia, Here I Come! I have uploaded the video that is due to go out on TV3 from the 6th October. Needless to say this is a much compressed version for web, but you get the idea. A big thanks to all involved, Marty Rea, Sean Stewart, Alan Stanford, Anthony Woods, Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhríde, Leonore McDonagh, Val Sherlock, Conleth Teevan, and Michael Church from Cabinteely House. Have a look at it here and let us know what you think..Will be posting the stills from the day and some pics from rehearsals soon, so do check back!

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