Ruth Leon’s New York Pocket theatre Review
Ruth Leon recommendsPhiladelphia, Here I Come – Irish Repertory Theatre
The Irish Rep, a tiny theatre downtown, almost as far from Broadway as you can get, has a season of Brian Friel plays. One, The Faith Healer, is currently playing in London at the Lyric Hammersmith.
The one I caught in NY was Philadelphia, Here I Come, a soulful take on the social and cultural shift that was taking place in Ireland in the 1960s, the pull between the traditional and the modern, and the movement towards emigration to the US.
All this is in the shape of one young man, Gar, played by two actors, both splendid, identified as the public and private Gar, dramatising his decision to leave the next day to make a new life in Philadelphia, at odds with his love for his hometown and his friends and family.
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