Philadelphia, Here I Come! : A Comedy in Three Acts

by Brian Friel

Book Overview

Fed up with the dreary round of life in Ballybeg, with his uncommunicative father and his humiliating job in his father's grocery shop, with his frustrated love for Kathy Doogan who married a richer,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571085865
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.3" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Friels Greatest Play

This is set in play format with a strange inclusion of the antagonists alter ego the two characters are Public the man everyone sees and Private the man no one sees or hears only Public can hear him. Together they make up Gar. The play is set the night before Gar is set to leave Ireland and move to Philadelphia. The story focuses not on his leaving but more on his escape from his unexciting father. The inclusion of Private Gar added humour and explanation of events in the play. An enjoyable play with greats dialog and a good story.

When the private and personal faces of us all are seen

In this play, Friel beautifully captures the loss felt that comes with leaving the green fields of Ireland to look for a better life. Friel step by step mirrors the way of life in Ireland perfectly, bring home to us all the reality of life in those days in rural Ireland. His father, unable to express his own emotions, can but make idle small talk to the son he my never see again......Gars friends, the "boys", though over 20 still boast of fictional conquests as if they were in the grip of adolesence....the sufficating sameness of day to day life in a rural village, aspects of Irish past, and sometimes present society which is often over looked by Irish writers are brillantly portrayed in this journey inside the mind of a boy about to leave all he knows, and hopefully become a man in the process. "Philadelphia, Here I come" is a story to be cherished by all that have made the journey themselves, those who still remember the Ireland of the past, and those seeking an insider view of a young mans mind. It is a must, something that you will read again and again, and something which everyone, both Irish and otherwise, will identify with forever.

WOW

We all have our little people within ourselves, that little voice that criticizes us when we know we are lying to ourself. Friel took this one step further: he put this self on stage. The main character in this play, Gar O'Donnel, is divided into a public and private half in this play on Gar's last night in Ireland before he goes to philadelphia. The public half is Gar's usual self: boisterous with friends, shy around his father and failed girlfriend, and respectful towards the old housekeeper. However at every step the private Gar is by his side, railing against the terrible monotony of life and leaving. The ending confrontation between Gar(s) and his father is at once moving and terribly tragic.