Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Gareth O’Donnell is 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, more successful young man and with the total absence of prospect and opportunity in his life at home in Ireland.

So, Gar has accepted his aunt’s invitation to come to Philadelphia. Now, on the eve of his departure, he is not happy to be leaving Ballybeg – but what does his ‘inner self’ think? In Brian Friel’s poignant comedy, we get two lead characters in one man and a chance to see and hear what private thoughts Gar has as he leaves Ireland and heads for the New World and, he hopes, a new life.