Analysis of Philadelphia, Here I Come. For more information you can contact with me.

1. The History of Irish Theatre

2. performances of plays on
religious themes in
Ireland from as early as
the 14th century,
a 1601 staging of Gorboduc
presented by Lord Mountjoy,
Lord Deputy of Ireland in
Dublin Castle.
written by Thomas
Sackville and
Thomas Norton.
a story of a divided
kingdom descending
into anarchy.

3. restoration of the monarchy in 1661.
John Ogilbya new theatre in Smock Alley.
staged mainly pro-Stuart works and
Shakespearean classics.

4. The Restoration
William Congreve
one of the most important
writers for the late 18th
London stage.
The accession to the throne of William of Orange
born in Yorkshire, Congreve grew up in Ireland and
studied with Jonathan Swift in Kilkenny.
the whole ethos of Dublin
Castle, including its
attitude to the theatre,
changed

8. The 18th Century
two of the most successful playwrights on the London stage
Oliver Goldsmith Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Good-Natur'd Man in 1768
She Stoops to Conquer in 1773
Oliver Goldsmith
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Rivals in 1775
The School for Scandal and The Critic.
The owner of the Drury Lane Theatre

9. The 19th Century
Dion Boucicault
His first play was Legend of Devil's Dyke (1838).
The Shaughran (1875) and Robert Emmet (1884).

10. Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
A Woman of No Importance(1893)
An Ideal Husband (1895)
The Importance of Being Earnest

11. George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

13. the establishment of the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin in 1899.
Irish National Theatre Society, later to become the Abbey
Theatre. It was formally established in December 1904.
W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge, George
Moore, and Seán O'Casey.
Elements of the Noh theatre of Japan, a tendency to
mythologise quotidian situations, a particularly strong focus
on writings in dialects of Hiberno-English.

14. “For Gregory and Yeats (and many later theatre historians and critics)
the Abbey Theatre is seen as a haven for Ireland’s longed-for modernity:
a place in which the impromptu dramas of political militancy are now
transformed, felicitously, into a theatre of national citizenship”
(Pilkington, 2).

15. - Many of Yeats’s plays were based on Irish mythology and
legend, in accordance with the Abbey’s celebration of
Ireland and Irish traditions.
Those of Lady Gregory
were based on her interest
in Irish folk tales and
mythology.
Both Yeats’s and Lady Gregory’s
plays were in reaction to the
stereotypical “stage Irishman”
character so often the object of
ridicule in plays imported from
England.

16. Edward Martyn withdrew from
the Abbey in disagreement. He
went on to help form the
Theatre of Ireland and later
started the Irish Theatre
Company (1914–1920).

17. Flag of Irish Free State
The nationalists protested certain plays that they felt
did not represent an accurate view of Irish life.
Its initial production in 1907 provoked the infamous
Playboy riots because some audience members objected
to his portrayal of the national character.

18. Between 1904 and 1930, the Abbey
continued to produce new plays on Irish
themes such as family life, Big House
stories, social issues.
Sean O’Casey’s

19. After O’Casey’s plays were produced in the late
1920s, the great, first era of Irish theater ended
and there began a “long period of decline”.
the conservative atmosphere in Ireland
from the 1930s to the 1950s.
“Second revival” of Irish theater as starting in
the 1950s and continuing into the 1980s.
The Hostage
(1958)
Waiting for
Godot (1953)
1930–1960

20. 1960–1980
Genre of immigration/emigration
plays:
M. J. Molloy’s The Wood of the Whispering
(1953),
John Murphy’s The Country Boy (1959),
John B. Keane’s Many Young Men of
Twenty (1961),
Dermot Bolger’s In High Germany (1990),
Sebastian Barry’s White Woman Street
(1992),
Charabanc’s Gold in the Streets (1986).
Philadelphia, Here I Come A Whistle in the Dark

21. The occupation of Northern Ireland by British troops in 1969
“Troubles” plays.
Sam Thompson (Over the Bridge,1960) John Boyd (The Flats, 1971)

22. 1980 TO THE PRESENT

23. Playhouse Field Day Theatre Company

24. Portia Coughlin (1996)
Marinaa Carr
Sebastian Barry
Marie Jones

25. Philadelphia, Here I Come!
(1964)
by Brian Friel
Gökçe Demirdağ
Canan Kaplan

29. ● January 9, 1929, the town of Omagh,
County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
● October 2, 2015, Greencastle, County
Donegal, Ireland
● Teacher
● Married Anne Morisson when he was 25
● Early 1950s, Friel began writing short
stories for the New Yorker
● Late 1950s, radio plays for BBC
● 1960s / Friel quit teaching in order to
become a writer
● In 1964 / First success as a playwright with
Philadelphia, Here I Come!
● Founder of Field Day Theatre Company
Friels: A Catholic
family in the
Protestant
Northern Ireland

30. Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964) Translations (1980)
Lovers: Winners and Losers (1967) The Communication Cord
(1982)
Crystal and Fox (1968) Making History
(1988)
The Mundy Scheme (1969) Dancing at
Lughnasa (1990)
The Gentle Island (1971) Wonderful
Tennessee (1993)
The Freedom of the City (1973) Molly Sweeney (1994)
Volunteers (1975) Give Me

31. Compared with
playwrights
such as Samuel
Beckett, Arthur
Miller, Harold
Pinter and
Tennessee
Williams
● “The Irish
Chekhov”
● “The
universally
accented
voice of
Ireland”
Tony, New York
Drama Critics
Circle,
Laurence Olivier
awards in the
“Best Play”
category
Elected “Saoi”
(Wise One) of
Aosdána, the
highest honour of
this exclusive
association of
Irish artists.

32. Settıng: Fıctıonal
town of “Ballybeg” ın
county donegal / Irısh
“Baıle Beag” whıch
means “Small Town”
“Fitting easily into
Ireland’s dominant
twentieth-century
literary and theatrical
aesthetic of naturalism,
Friel’s drama tends to
take place at a moment
contemporaneous with
the play’s production
(‘the present in
Ireland’)” (Pilkington
499).

33. “... the significance of these settings is shown as
lying less in their historical or cultural particularity
than in their role as background for a universal
condition. A characteristic feature of Friel’s treatment
of Ireland, in other words, is that it is offered less as
a social analysis and more as a metaphor for an
overarching existential concern” (Pilkington 499).
● Historical context is less important than the
situation put forward by Friel
● “Certainly, Friel’s plays end up repudiating the
thematic importance of the specificity of Irish
history and politics except as an illustration of
general trends, and to this extent Friel indeed
may be considered as an ‘anti-historical, anti-
political writer’” (O’Toole 1993: 205).

34. Friel’s drama: “...deals with a widely shared transnational experience -
the impact of capitalist modernity on a traditional society - by means
of recognizably national characters and settings” (Pilkington 499).
“...the preoccupying theme of Friel’s plays is the effect on the
individual of such broader social, political and economic changes”
(Pilkington 499).
● Tragic situation of the twentieth century individual, stuck between the
conventionality of tradition and the rapidly changing modern world
● The inability of Ireland to adapt to modernity
● The vast fulfilment promised by modern America & American dream

36. Written
in 1964
First
performed
as part of
the Dublin
Theatre
Festival in
1964
Became the
longest-
running Irish
play on
Broadway
(Pilkington
501)

37. “...Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964), which
deals with emigration from the peripheral
north-western county of Donegal in the
1960s,...” (Pilkington 499).
● Ireland’s economic
modernization in the second
half of the twentieth century
● Government thinking shifted
from a policy of economic self-
sufficiency to a profit-oriented
export economy

38. ❖ “Philadelphia, Here I Come!, for example,
is not so much a play about emigration as it
is about the male protagonist’s crisis of
loss and separation from his parents”
(Pilkington 499-500).
➢ American Dream
(attacked/supported?)
➢ Tradition vs. Modernity
➢ Individual’s inner turmoil
➢ Father-son relationship

39. Gareth
O’Donnell’s
departure for
Philadelphia
leaving his
restrictive
hometown in
search for
freedom
promised by
America
constantly in
conflict with
his alter ego,
questioning
the choices he
makes
WHAT IS
THE PLAY
ABOUT?

40. ● After Irish War of
Independence (1919-
1921), most of Ireland was
free from the United
Kingdom
● Became Irish Free State,
later Ireland
● Northern Ireland
(consisting of six north-
eastern counties)
remained as part of the
U.K.
● Conflict between Catholic
Irish nationalists and
Protestant unionists /
loyalists (The Troubles)
● The Troubles was a nationalist conflict in Northern
Ireland in the late twentieth century (aka Northern
Ireland Conflict)
● Not primarily a religious conflict, primary concern is
the constitutional status of Northern Ireland
○ Unionist wanted Northern Ireland to remain
within the UK
○ Nationalists wanted Northern Ireland to be apart
from the UK

42. CHARACTERS